The good ship SS Lizard Oz sailed on through the weekend's choppy, stormy waters, seemingly entirely oblivious to the iceberg on the horizon ...
The pond wondered if it should ignore it all, or just settle for a link, perhaps to the Graudian where the big beautiful lawsuit can be read:
Trump sues Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over Epstein report, President follows through on libel threat over report that said he sent Epstein ‘bawdy’ birthday note and sketch
$10bn.!!
Per Aljazeera, Trump sues Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch for $10bn over Epstein story, US Justice Department files a motion in Manhattan federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein cases.
It's getting fruitier and fruitier, by the day, by the hour ...
Best not get the reptiles upset. They're already wildly agitated ... so best settle down for a Sunday meditation with a standard serving of bigotry and bile from prattling Polonius ...
The header: Anti-Semitism v Islamophobia? No comparison, According to available evidence, there have been no firebombing attacks on Sunni or Shia Muslim mosques in Sydney or Melbourne and no angry disruptions of Australian Muslim restaurants.
The caption: Rabbi Gutnick at the Synagogue in East Melbourne where a fire was lit at the doorway on July 5. Picture: David Crosling/NewsWire
No comparison? Of course the petulant pedant carefully set his terms for comparisons.
No point heading back to a March 2021 Charles Sturt report headed Violence and hatred against Australian mosques widespread according to new research ...
No point heading off to the wiki dedicated to the topic, Islamophobia in Australia... best just to go with the flow of bigotry and bile ...
It’s fashionable in modern-day word usage for some to declare, “I’m sorry to say this but …” before stating something they fully intended and concerning which they are unapologetic.
For my part, I’m not sorry for expressing the opinion that there is no valid comparison between the acts of anti-Semitism and acts of Islamophobia in contemporary Australia.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess delivered his annual threat assessment in Canberra on February 19.
Two days later he was interviewed by Sally Sara on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program. Asked by Sara whether Islamophobia was “of equal concern to ASIO” as anti-Semitism, Burgess replied, “They’re both incredibly wrong.”
He added: “But it’s clear that, actually right now, we are seeing way more anti-Semitism in terms of significant incidents my agency is investigating.
“My organisation is split on two parts of dealing with threats – threats to life (and) threats to way of life. On the threat to life, our No.1 priority now is investigating anti-Semitic acts in this country.”
The ASIO director-general said this after the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea on December 6 last year. This matter is before the courts. But it can be said that, if not detected early, it could have led to many deaths.
Another six months and another arson attack, this time at the East Melbourne synagogue on July 4. This matter is also before the courts. But it is reasonable to assume that, if not for security arrangements and early detection, there would have been deaths.
The reptiles introduced a visual distraction, Australia's Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on Sunday (July 6) called an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshipers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation's Jewish community, an “attack on Australia”.
It was a great relief to the pond that this was the only visual interruption ... the rest was just straight bigotry.
Whenever the reptiles head off on this course, veer far extreme starboard to hate mongering, the pond wonders why it bothers to argue.
After all, as a certified friendly atheist, the pond is more interested in the hate crimes directed at gays allegedly to expedite their way to an eternity in hellfire, and all the rest of the hate directed at unbelievers in their infinitely pleasing variety by all the vicious and demented branches of the god botherers.
But as we're here, perhaps a summary of events from the wiki post October 2023 (see the original text for the footnotes)...
Between October and December 2023, Australia experienced a surge in both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas on 7 October. The Islamophobia Register Australia recorded 133 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 6 November 2023, including spitting attacks, threats to mosques and Muslim schools, graffiti, property damage, hate mail, verbal abuse, and online abuse. By comparison, the average number of weekly Islamophobic incidents prior to 7 October averaged 2.5 per week. Executive director of Islamophobia Register Australia, Sharara Attai, said that she believed that the number of Islamophobic incidents was higher than 133 and that Islamophobia and other hate crimes were often under-reported. In addition, the Victorian Police recorded 12 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 9 November, resulting in one arrest.
By 2 December, the number of Islamophobic incidents recorded by the Islamophobia Register had risen by 13-fold to 230 incidents over a period of seven weeks. Notable incidents included a young Christian boy being called a "terrorist" for his Palestinian ethnicity, Muslim women having their hijabs yanked off, and Arab and Muslim Australians being doxed, receiving death threats, and dismissed from their jobs for expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints or attending pro-Palestine rallies.
Polonius isn't sorry about any of these trivial matters...
Now move to Sydney. In January, there was anti-Semitic vandalism at the Newtown Synagogue in the city’s inner west along with an attack in the eastern suburbs on what was incorrectly thought to be the current home of a high-profile Jewish Australian leader.
Head south again. I’m not into hyperbole. However, the storming of the Israeli restaurant Miznon in the Melbourne CBD on July 4 by some two dozen angry protesters was a reminder of the early acts of anti-Semitism in Germany after the demise of the Weimar Republic in 1933.
Having read Jillian Segal’s Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Anti-Semitism, I look forward to reading the report by Aftab Malik, the special envoy to combat Islamophobia. I’m sure it will make important contributions to the public debate.
However, according to available evidence, there have been no firebombing attacks on Sunni or Shia Muslim mosques in Sydney or Melbourne and no angry disruptions of Australian Muslim restaurants.
Anti-Semitism was rife in Australia well before Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. I wrote about this in my column on September 23, 2023, concerning the judgment in the Federal Court in Kaplan v State of Victoria. Chief Justice Debra Sue Mortimer upheld most of the claims made by five applicants who had experienced acts of anti-Semitism while studying between 2013 and 2020 at Brighton Secondary College, which is administered by the Victorian Department of Education.
Move back to Sydney. I wrote about the unauthorised demonstration that took place at the Town Hall to the Opera House on October 9, 2023. This was before Israel took military action against Hamas in Gaza. NSW Police did nothing as sections of the crowd chanted “Where’s the Jews” (the police version). It sounded to some like “Gas the Jews”.
Whatever the words, the anti-Semitic meaning was the same. Australian citizens were being targeted by other Australian citizens simply because they were Jews.
It stands to reason why Jewish Australians – old, middle-aged and young – fear for their safety. Not only on the streets but within organisations, many government-funded, that will not protect them. The weakness of universities in this regard comes immediately to mind. And some police forces could do better.
The Segal report is an important document. However, the authors erred in suggesting that governments should “ensure that public funding to cultural institutions, artists, broadcasters and individuals is not used to support or implicitly endorse anti-Semitic theories or narratives”.
Such a recommendation is unlikely to happen and it provides an opportunity for publicly funded individuals to claim that they are about to suffer for their beliefs.
It is true that, as Chris Mitchell has argued, large sections of the Australian media are hostile to contemporary Israel.
However, the only way for this to be challenged is to call for viewpoint diversity.
Ah yes, the old viewpoint diversity.
That's the sort of line that ran well in the Adolf years, and is getting a retread in the days of the Gaza genocide, the ethnic cleansing, and the use of mass starvation.
But no doubt after listening to British Doctor Nick Maynard describing the dire situation, here, Polonius would just mutter that's not viewpoint diversity. What would a Johnny on the spot know up against his own patented prejudices and bile?
But do carry on ...
The problem was evident when ABC 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson interviewed Segal on Thursday, July 10. Avoiding the main points of the Segal report, Ferguson focused on what is termed the IHRA non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism and the contemporary examples attached to it. This is of interest but of little relevance to firebombings in Melbourne or Sydney.
Segal denied this. In any event, it is a bit much for one of the leading journalists on the ABC – which is a conservative-free zone – to be alleging that others are into cancellation. After all, the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is Australia’s canceller-in-chief. Which explains its evident lack of viewpoint diversity.
The ABC’s two key current affairs programs – 7.30 and Radio National Breakfast (currently presented by Steve Cannane) – have managed to move the focus of Segal’s report to matters of definitions and themselves in their role as journalists.
It is against this background that Education Minister Jason Clare announced on Wednesday that he did not “intend to look at this (Segal) report in isolation”. Clare added that “next month the (Albanese) government will receive a report from the special envoy in combating Islamophobia” and will “wait to see what his recommendations will be”.
The problem is that synagogues are already burning – and one report should not depend on another.
I’m not sorry for saying this.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.
It was a hostile interview. The interviewer interrupted the interviewee on no fewer than seven occasions with “just let me stop you there” and “just let me jump in there”. It turned out that Ferguson was more interested in the fate of journalists than in anti-Semitism. She alleged that Segal was asking for a role in monitoring the output of the ABC and SBS and calling for cultural events to be “cancelled”.
The pond isn't sorry for sharing this, another event from 2017 showing how long this has infested certain sections of Australian society ...
Islamophobia was documented at a Q Society fundraising dinner, with numerous guest speakers including current members of the Australian Government present. Speaker Larry Pickering stating that "If they (Muslims) are in the same street as me, I start shaking", and that "They are not all bad, they do chuck pillow-biters off buildings."adding that "I can't stand Muslims".The cartoonist also auctioned an overtly Islamophobic work depicting the rape of a woman in a niqab by her son-in-law. Another Larry Pickering cartoon auctioned at the fundraiser depicted an Imam as a pig (in Islam the consumption of all pork products is considered haram or forbidden), being spit roasted, with a "halal certified" stamp on its rump. A case of wine called "72 Virgins" was also up for grabs, along with a signed photograph of Dame Joan Sutherland. Kirralie Smith has denied supporting Pickerings statements, however Smith has reiterated parts of the speech stating that "there are Muslims that actually do throw gays off buildings!". Sitting members of the Australian Government, Cory Bernardi and George Christensen, attracted criticism for speaking at the Q Society of Australia. The event received protests who called the event racist.
Of course that's all just side-splitting, hilarious, diversity viewpoints in action ...
BTW, did anyone read the WaPo report, enough to scare the socks off the bigots?
And so on,
here, and in an archive link
here.Now there's some real fun, and the pond isn't sorry to celebrate it.
And now it wouldn't be a weekend at the lizard Oz without a goodly dose of climate science denialism.
Bring it on Ughmann, all twelve tedious minutes, as long in time suffered as the bromancer blathering away this weekend ...
The header:
Once upon a time in the green energy transition, Germany faces an industrial crisis spawned by its energy policy that’s obvious to anyone who doesn’t work in fiction. Australia’s green energy fable won’t have a happy ending.The caption: Climate Change and Energy minister Chris Bowen, left and wind turbines producing electricity spinning over a solar park near Klettwitz, in Germany. Pictures: News Corp
The peculiar advice: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there
Before setting off on an overly familiar journey with the Ughmann, the pond thought it might introduce a distraction, offered by Bill McKibben in The New Yorker under the generic Annals of a Warming Planet, under the header 4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment, In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system. (*archive link).
The eternally optimistic Bill opened his piece this way ...
Bill then went on to do a series of dot points, and rather than argue with the Ughmann, the pond thought it might liberally scribble a few through the Ughmann's unreformed and uninformed seminarian rantings...
The world once cheered Germany’s green fairytale, which had a title that evoked a brisk, healthy walk in the woods: Energiewende.
Now its energy transition is a Brothers Grimm nightmare as naive ideals are devoured by the wolves of reality.
The dark parable is starkly told in the first paragraphs of a recent open letter to the Chancellor from an alliance of worker representatives in Germany’s industrial heartland.
“We are in the most severe economic crisis since World War II,” it begins.
“Just last year, at least 100,000 industrial jobs were eliminated altogether. The political promises of the previous federal government for a ‘green economic miracle’ have amounted to smoke and mirrors. In reality, never before have so many well-paid jobs been under threat as they are today.
“If the energy transition is, as some say, ‘an operation on the open heart of our economy’, then so far this operation has failed miserably. We must admit: The patient is in danger of dying on the operating table.
“For 35 years, (solar) and wind power have been legally privileged and subsidised, but to this day they contribute no more to supply security than they did three decades ago. Instead, they generate hundreds of billions in grid costs.”
The signatories include union leaders and the elected chairs of works councils who represent workers in industries employing more than one million people.
It will come as no surprise to learn that Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is a big fan of Berlin’s scalpel work.
The reptiles introduced an image designed to provoke fear and loathing in the hive mind, Wind turbines spin with the Jaenschwalde coal-fired power station, which is among Europe's biggest coal-fired plants, in the background near Peitz, Germany. Picture: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
The pond thought that might be a good chance to drop in a few Bill dot points ...
By golly, he does go on, but that meant the Ughmann had to put in some extra heavy lifting to keep his gloom machine going (well it could hardly be glowing, think of the energy) ...
In a meeting with his German counterpart in 2024 he said: “We have no more important partner than Germany when it comes to energy transformation. Germany is a great industrial powerhouse of the world.”
That Germany is facing an industrial crisis spawned by its energy policy is obvious to anyone who doesn’t work in fiction. Berlin’s failure, like Bowen’s, can be measured in the billions squandered to cover the illusion of cheap, green power.
London’s Financial Times reports: “Germany is exploring ways to fund multibillion-euro subsidies for energy-intensive companies as part of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s pledge to boost the competitiveness of the country’s heavy industries. The measure is part of efforts to reduce electricity costs for industrial groups to revitalise the eurozone’s largest economy after its longest postwar period of stagnation.”
That stagnation is entirely self-inflicted, as the union leaders’ letter to the Chancellor notes.
“Germany’s dual exit from nuclear power and coal has made us dependent on unreliable (solar) and wind power and expensive gas imports. We pay for this with the highest electricity prices in Europe. Never before has our power supply been so expensive and insecure. These high prices are not only socially unfair, they now threaten our economy, our prosperity and social peace.”
It is unlikely the officials would have been cheered by a signature Bowen bon mot, delivered in a sadly underreported speech in their homeland.
“There is no geopolitical crisis that can stop the sun shining and the wind blowing,” Bowen said. “Renewable energy, supported by storage and transmission, is secure energy.”
At this point the pond should note that the UGHMANN borrowed from KING DONALD and began a "say it in CAPS" routine ...
CAUTIONARY TALE
Precisely the opposite is proving true in Germany, and everywhere else where weather-dependent generation rises to become a dominant form of power.
Rather than seeing Germany as a cautionary tale, Australia is conducting the same open-heart surgery on its eastern national electricity market, the most complex and most vital piece of machinery in the land.
All of the same symptoms of distress are evident. The patient is dying.
You could cover the continent in wind turbines and solar panels and spend countless billions on batteries, and without a 100 per cent backup from a fuel source that system will never be guaranteed to deliver reliable power on demand every second of every day of the year. In an electricity system, that is the only kind of power that counts.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright underscored this in an appearance before a congressional committee.
Unlike our Chris, Wright ran an energy company and has degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering.
He told the committee: “If you’re not there at peak demand, you’re just a parasite on the grid because you just make the other sources turn up and down as you come and go.
“Our electricity markets have rewarded low-value electricity and we’ve subsidised (it) to put more of it on. We need to have people bidding into a marketplace that are both delivering the same product, which is 24/7 electricity, because that’s the only thing customers will buy.”
Australia is flooding its eastern grid with high-cost, low-value parasite power, driven not by engineering or economics but by politics.
At the same time, we’ve vilified coal, the fuel that still supplies the bulk of our electricity, and gas, the only scalable replacement. The result: high gas prices and soaring system costs, and the only model you need to check this fact is your electricity bill. The truth is writ large in $6.8bn in federal government power bill subsidies and in the businesses going to the wall.
The reptiles interrupted with another terrifying snap, ‘There is no geopolitical crisis that can stop the sun shining and the wind blowing,’ Chris Bowen said in a speech in Germany. Picture: Jason Edwards
The pond stayed steady, knowing that at some point the Ughmann would have to mention China ...
It gets worse. If Australia is serious about cutting global carbon emissions then that demands we end our exports of coal and liquefied natural gas, ripping $160bn a year from our economy. As cover for this act of economic self-harm, the government inserts the word green in front of energy and builds a fantasy future on the quicksand of industries that do not exist.
Bowen’s reason for being in Germany last year was to forge a green hydrogen partnership. Green hydrogen sounds like the future of fuel, until you realise it devours more energy in production than it returns.
In practical terms, it’s about as efficient as burning wet wood.
But the more projects fail, the more the government is determined to burn taxpayer dollars as fuel.
At least six large-scale green hydrogen projects were shelved or cancelled in Australia between late 2024 and mid-2025. Rystad Energy analysis shows around 99 per cent of announced green hydrogen capacity in Australia has stalled at the concept or approval stage, with CSIRO data showing at least 61 projects quietly scrapped before reaching final investment decision.
When Origin Energy pulled out of the Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub in NSW, Bowen stepped in to prop it up with another $432m in taxpayer cash.
The idea of this project is to supply green hydrogen to Orica’s ammonia plant in Newcastle.
But look closely and you learn all this cash is being hosed at the meagre goal of replacing 7.5 per cent of the plant’s daily natural gas demand, meaning 92.5 per cent of ammonia production still will rely on fossil fuel. The gas saved will be redirected into supporting the grid.
So net-zero change in the amount of gas burned in Australia.
Centre for Independent Studies energy research director Aidan Morrison notes the hub has already gobbled up grants of $70m from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and $45m from NSW. “The proportions of public spending required highlight the depravity of the endeavour,” he says.
“And whilst I know the game Chris Bowen is playing, this poses serious questions for Orica. What exactly are they trying to achieve?
“Does Orica not realise that the same set of delusions that led Germany to its present crisis currently (has) a firm hold on Australia’s government, particularly our Energy Minister?”
The Australian energy story is built on delusions cut from the pages of The Magic Pudding. In this fairytale we put our faith in endlessly regenerating, cost-free energy unconstrained by physics and material limits.
The reptiles slipped in another terrifying snap, In Germany, the sun appears to be setting on the weather-dependent energy fairytale. Picture: Daniel Roland / AFP
The pond knew China was about to come up ...
But we are just a chapter in an epic work of global mythology that tells of a planet acting in unison to cut carbon emissions by replacing fossil fuel with weather-dependent generation and batteries.
Let’s take a whip around the real world to see how that magical thinking stacks up. This column has noted before that the gold standard measure for global energy production and consumption is the Statistical Review of World Energy. The latest report records that in 2024 the world burned more coal, oil and gas than in any previous year, surpassing the record set in 2023.
Eighty-two per cent of the world’s total energy demand, what’s called primary energy, was met by fossil fuels. Wind and solar combined contributed less than 4 per cent.
There is rapid growth in wind and solar generation but it is not replacing hydrocarbons, it is adding to the world’s ever-increasing demand for power.
The review also records that global carbon dioxide emissions rose again in 2024, reaching yet another all-time high. And everywhere you look, these numbers are confirmed by government deeds that are routinely at odds with government myth-making.
Like most of the mainstream media, the Financial Times is signed up to the goal of hitting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but its recent feature on coal highlighted an inconvenient truth.
“Today the world burns nearly double the amount of coal that it did in 2000, and four times the amount it did in 1950. Every minute of every day, 16,700 tonnes of coal are excavated from the ground – enough to fill seven Olympic swimming pools.”
And 57 per cent of the world’s coal is burned in China.
MEANWHILE IN CHINA ...
Despite the endlessly hyped record levels of investment in wind, solar and batteries, coal still dominates China’s electricity sector, accounting for 58 per cent of its generation in 2024. Eighty-six per cent of China’s primary energy comes from coal, oil and gas. That number will not change in a hurry because China is building new coal-fired power plants at the rate of one a week.
China remains the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for about a third of the global total. Along with India, it contributed 62 per cent of the increase in global emissions last year.
Australian politicians usually like to focus on Beijing’s green credentials, but on a diplomatic tour through the Pacific Foreign Minister Penny Wong offered a rare moment of candour. When pressed by journalists about pursuing even more extreme emissions targets than those Labor has already signed up to, Wong pointed the finger at Beijing.
“China is the world’s largest emitter. Its actions will determine whether we can achieve our target,” the Foreign Minister said.
Australia accounts for just more than 1 per cent of global carbon emissions. We could unplug the nation and China would replace our yearly carbon footprint in a fortnight.
Pretending that our share of emissions will decide the fate of the Great Barrier Reef, save a seahorse or alter global weather patterns is not just a fantasy, it’s a lie.
Yes, that's about the right time for another serve of Bill's dot points...
The Ughmann is a dedicated follower of clean, dinkum, virginal Oz coal ... what could possibly go wrong?
COAL HARD TRUTHS
If you want to know what the world is up to, follow the money, because Beijing’s interest in coal does not end at its borders. Chinese banks led global coal-related financing, allocating nearly $US248bn ($364bn) to the industry between 2022 and 2024, according to the Still Banking on Coal 2025 report by Urgewald, a German environmental group that tracks fossil fuel finance.
US banks ranked second, providing about $US51bn across the same time, led by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.
Australia may be shutting coal-fired generation but the rest of the world still wants the cheap, reliable power that it delivers. In India, coal accounts for about 52 per cent of primary energy, while in Indonesia, it provides nearly 66 per cent of electricity generation.
Of course, each of these countries also has a great green fairytale of their own, so it’s always best to check how headlines stack up against stories.
The reptiles slipped in a snap showing how benign, sweet, and loveable coal was, Water vapour rises from cooling towers of the Jaenschwalde coal-fired power station, which is among Europe’s biggest coal-fired plants, near Peitz in Germany. Picture: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
The pond would like to think that the Ughmann would wrap things up quickly after that, but remember this is a twelve minute celebration of the wonders of coal, and never you mind all that climate change cult religion stuff ...
In February, Reuters reported: “India has the second-largest clean power capacity development pipeline globally after China, with nearly 56,000 megawatts of new renewables, hydro and nuclear capacity under construction.”
Read on and you learn: “However, the country is also building 30,000MW of new coal-fired capacity, which will preserve coal’s status as India’s primary power source even after the construction boom.”
The short story is India is in the process of building four times the total coal generation on Australia’s eastern grid. Those new coal-fired plants will be generating near capacity 24/7, while the new wind or solar developments will deliver well less than half their claimed capacity when averaged over a year.
One of the headlines on Indonesia’s energy transformation is its bid to build Southeast Asia’s largest floating solar farm. Less newsprint is devoted to the fact private coal-fired plants built to power nickel smelters are exempt from environmental reviews and are not counted in the country’s pledges to reduce fossil fuel use.
Most of the smelters are owned by Chinese companies and the exemption is justified on the grounds that nickel is vital to the green energy transition.
South Africa generated a lot of glowing press at the 2021 global climate jamboree when it partnered with the EU, France, Germany, Britain and the US to pledge it would transition from coal-dependent energy to a low-carbon economy. The investors group pledged $US8.5bn across five years to assist in this endeavour, and it is estimated that the full cost of this project is in the order of $US99bn.
Alas, in February, South Africa officially designated coal as a critical mineral.
“For us, coal is a critical mineral because it generates substantial revenue,” Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told the Investing in African Mining conference in Cape Town.
“The coal sector remains highly attractive for new and expanded investments.”
Coal delivers about 72 per cent of South Africa’s primary energy, and the government forecasts that won’t change over the next decade.
In Morocco, the big energy news is that Britain has pulled out of a project to transmit power generated by North Africa’s abundant wind and sunshine through underwater cables.
Britain’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said in a statement that it would no longer support the $33bn project because of a “high level of inherent risk, related to both delivery and security”.
The UK’s drive to lead the world in weather-dependent energy has helped deliver some of the highest power prices in the world. This has fuelled a surge in energy poverty, with 24 per cent of households behind on their bills and average debts topping £1700 ($3500). Energy-intensive industries are collapsing: manufacturing output is now at its lowest point in 35 years, as firms warn high electricity costs are making it impossible to stay competitive.
Meanwhile, in South America, Argentina is rapidly expanding oil and gas production in its Vaca Muerta shale basin, with output rising sharply and new pipelines under construction to support exports. State energy firm Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales is investing heavily and has signed LNG deals with Europe, helping drive an expected $US8bn energy trade surplus in 2025.
Brazil is busy burnishing its green fable as it prepares to host this year’s UN climate summit. It comes as its government is ramping up fossil fuel production, auctioning off 172 new oil and gas blocks in June, including 47 in the environmentally sensitive Amazon basin. State oil giant Petrobras plans to boost output by 33 per cent, aiming to top one billion barrels a year by 2030.
Canada is pressing the pedal to the metal on all its resources, expanding oil and gas production and building major new pipelines as it aims to be an energy superpower. It still has ambitious emissions targets but plans to get there by investing heavily in technologies Australia refuses to countenance: carbon capture and nuclear energy.
Before turning to the Ughmann's celebration of the deeds of the Cantaloupe Clown, the pond should note that Bill closed with some thoughts in The New Yorker on that matter ...
...The other question—how to speed up the transition—is interesting, too. Doubtless the price of solar panels and other equipment will continue to fall, but they’re already so cheap that price is not usually the barrier, at least in places that don’t have to pay huge tariffs. Instead, the blockages come from policy and infrastructure: there are nearly enough renewable projects on the books to power the United States entirely from renewables, but they wait in an “interconnection queue” for utility companies to approve them. The Biden Administration was committed to reducing these blockages—a special team in the White House constantly tracked the biggest choke points and wrangled state permits. The Trump Administration is actively trying to impede such progress; at a June congressional hearing, the Secretary of Energy (and former fracking executive), Chris Wright, said that solar and wind power were intermittent and hence were “just a parasite on the grid.” In May, he issued orders keeping a coal plant in Michigan and an oil-and-gas-fired plant in Pennsylvania from being retired as planned.
This kind of obstruction is not slowing renewable energy in the rest of the world: if anything, Washington’s new fickleness provides one more reason to stop depending on the U.S. for fuel. America is currently the world’s largest exporter of natural gas; the Trump Administration is trying to supercharge that trade with the threat of tariffs on countries that don’t increase their purchases. But, as one Wall Street analyst predicted this spring, it’s possible that renewables will see yet another acceleration, driven not just by climate worries but by security fears, as nations seek some insulation from “geopolitical, macro, and financial risks.” A 2023 poll by the market research firm Glocalities, of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more than public support for fossil fuels.” And surveys conducted by the communications and research firm Global Strategy Group in the fall of 2024 found that eighty-seven per cent of Americans—and almost eighty per cent of people planning to vote for Trump—favored the clean-energy tax credits in the I.R.A. “Solar power remains the most popular source of electricity in America,” the Global Strategy Group partner Andrew Baumann said, “with broad support across the political spectrum.” If we can make the transition affordable and easy, the will is there.
The power is there as well. Scientists are confident that the sun will burn for another five billion years. Our local star, which already provides heat and light and photosynthesis, is prepared to offer us all the energy we could ever use, and in the process perhaps help rescue us from an otherwise impossible moment.
And so to the unreformed, unrepentant seminarian doing his dance with the devil, as only seminarians can do ...
TRUMP’S MOVES
Just about the only country that isn’t pretending to care about hitting carbon-cutting targets is the US. Donald Trump began demolishing the nation’s climate policy on day one of his second term, quitting the Paris Agreement, ending offshore wind projects and defunding key Biden-era programs.
Within 52 days, his administration had reversed emissions standards, paused clean energy initiatives, and gutted regulatory agencies.
In a December essay, Oxford economist Sir Dieter Helm delivered a sweeping indictment of global climate policy, arguing the net-zero consensus is breaking down because it is built on illusion. Helm contrasts the ritual of yearly climate summits with the unbroken rise of carbon emissions and the stubborn 80 per cent share of global energy still held by fossil fuels.
He exposes the core deceit: net-zero targets are based on territorial emissions rather than consumption, allowing rich nations to offshore their carbon footprint, turning climate policy into a worldwide accounting shell game.
There is no energy transition.
“Oil output is over 100 million barrels a day, coal is maintaining its markets, and gas is booming,” Helm writes.
“Just as there was no transition from wood to coal, or from coal to oil, there is no transition from coal, oil and gas to renewables, even in electricity.”
One transition is all too real: from low to high-cost electricity.
Helm demolishes the claim that weather-dependent generation is cheaper than other sources of energy. “The system costs of renewables are what matters,” he writes.
“As more and more are added to the electricity system, they require not just a very large and costly rebuilding of the grid, but also more and more back-up generation for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. This is not controversial: it is well-known but widely simply ignored.”
Search the globe and everywhere facts puncture myriad green myths. No electricity grid anywhere runs reliably on wind, solar and batteries without 100 per cent backup from hydro, nuclear, coal, gas or imports. Every nation with high wind and solar penetration has high electricity prices. Almost all nations exploit the energy resources they have because energy is the economy.
Access to cheap, abundant energy is the driving force in making a country wealthy. No matter what they say, most nations are more interested in energy security than hitting net zero by 2050, or any other year.
And every nation has its own green energy fable. Ours will not have a happy ending.
At least he's right about that.
The planet is already stuffed, and the stuffing, thanks to the Ughmann's kind of mindlessly luddite cheerleading, and the work of King Donald himself, is getting more and more stuffed.
Bomb ourselves into oblivion or heat ourselves into extinction?
Gee, thanks Ughmann, another day's brilliant work ...
BTW, did anybody see that Daanyal Saeed yarn in Crikey, How does News Corp make its money?, News Corp doesn’t make the bulk of its money through news anymore. So where do the millions come from? New financial statements give us a hint. (*archive link).
Inter alia:
...News’ Q3 2025 earnings statement noted that the News Media sector of the company, which includes its Australian newspaper division, brought in US$514 million in revenue for the three months to March 2025 — slightly down on the previous year — which represents 25.5% of News’ overall revenue. Dow Jones represented the biggest revenue stream at 28.6% of revenue.
When it comes to the various EBITDAs (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) however, news media represented just 11.3% of earnings, compared to Dow Jones, which made 45.5% of those earnings.
Dow Jones itself could have been argued in the past to also be a news publishing business, given that it publishes the likes of The Wall Street Journal and indeed is named after Charles Dow and Edward Jones, two pioneering journalists of the 19th century. However, News’ 2024 annual report notes that the Dow Jones business makes most of its money in B2B (business-to-business) sales, and 2024 saw that part of the business become the most profitable element of Dow Jones.
“Fiscal 2024 was a pivotal moment in the history of the company, as it was the first year in which more than 50% of Dow Jones’ profitability was driven by the surging B2B business,” Thomson said in the annual report.
Elsewhere in the report, there are hints at how the news business isn’t at the core of where News Corp makes its money (although it is at the core of the company’s political and social power).
Thomson described the company’s New York Post tabloid as having suffered “decades of chronic losses”, and segment EBITDA in news media was down 23% on FY2023, for which the company blamed “primarily … the adverse impact from News Corp Australia”.
Revenue at News Corp Australia was down 7% on the previous financial year, and advertising revenue was down 11% in line with a general market downturn.
In 2024, News Corp Australia swung the axe, with major job cuts as part of a complete revamp of the news business, siloing the various newspapers and mastheads into three distinct sections based on their product offering, including putting its leading news site news.com.au together with its homegrown wire service Newswire in the “Free News & Lifestyle” pillar.
This was in line with regular job cuts made at News Corp papers over recent years in attempts to keep the mastheads above water relative to other highly profitable parts of the business.
Here's a thought. If a settlement is needed with King Donald, why not sell off the Australian newspaper division for scrap?
Just a thought, because at the very least it would spare the pond having to offer the dog botherer as a Sunday bonus ...
Not more whining about China:
Leadership is absent in this once lucky country, Unfathomably, at this time, Anthony Albanese chose to spend six days in China, bowing and scraping to the communist leadership. What a dismal circus of self-harm.The caption for the panda that fixates the reptiles: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seen with panda Su Xing during a six-day visit to China. Picture: AAP
The endless, meaningless advice: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there
In his usual whining way, the Utegate man started off with a cosmic whine.
These are dangerous and testing times.
He can say that again ... per the BBC...
Now them's some mighty fine testing times.
Now whine away ...
We have a government mired in fiscal, strategic and social delusion; an opposition preoccupied with doubt and self-fascination; a business community sniffing the wind (as ever); and a public distracted, polarised and misguided in a digital media malaise.
All this at a time of war in the Middle East and eastern Europe, global trade upheaval, economic duress under record debt levels, and the strategic threat posed by unprecedented Chinese military expansion.
Only strong leadership or good luck can navigate us through these waters. In Australia we are relying on dumb luck. Because the leadership is absent.
It is not only Anthony Albanese’s indolent prime ministership; cast your eyes wider and search for leadership elsewhere in the Labor Party, opposition, other levels of government, business, industry and public debate. There is little vision, action or urgency; we are like frogs in warming water.
Our elites have conspired across two decades to deliver a self-imposed energy crisis in an energy-rich nation. This has undercut our manufacturing industries and threatens the broader economy, while we allow unconstrained immigration to fuel housing and cost-of-living crises. China’s astounding economic rise has turned into a regional and global security threat, yet we have failed to fund and modernise our defence force.
We have made ourselves increasingly dependent on China economically while Beijing has used the economic coercion of trade sanctions against our justifiable foreign policy actions, such as calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic or deciding to boost our US and British alliances through the AUKUS deal that includes nuclear-powered submarines.
Then came a snap much used by the reptiles, likely because it was cheap, and the reptiles love PMO handouts, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China. Source: PMO
The pond didn't bother with any homework for the dog botherer. He's just a whiny man who does his best to forget his role in Malware's Utegate ...
Yet at this vulnerable juncture, Albanese has created tensions and uncertainty around the US alliance by rejecting an American request for assistance in the Middle East, splitting from its diplomacy on Israel and sending to Washington as ambassador a former prime minister in Kevin Rudd who has been personally and vindictively critical of President Donald Trump.
The US is reviewing the AUKUS arrangements while another embittered former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is telling anyone who will listen that the deal will fail because the US cannot produce enough vessels to satisfy its own needs, let alone ours. (Turnbull preferred his bizarre plan to reconfigure French nuclear-powered submarines with diesel engines; maybe we could try propellers on a B-2 stealth bomber, too.)
Unfathomably, at this time, Albanese chose to spend six days in China, bowing and scraping to the communist leadership. What a dismal circus of self-harm.
The only joy the pond can offer?
While the reptiles insist on doubling down and offering a double serve of the dog botherer, ranting away on Sky Noise down under, the pond limits the mental damage by keeping things to a screen cap and a general summary of the blather, Sky News host Chris Kenny slams Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for being too “weak” to criticise China during his six-day visit. “When China lauded our Prime Minister as their handsome boy, they certainly picked their man,” Mr Kenny said. “After three years as Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese hasn't let them down. Not only has he been too weak to criticise China … he's been stronger in his criticisms of the US, wobbly on the US alliance, and all too eager to make excuses for China's military bullying. “He's rolled over for the bullies, which only undermines our own national standing, especially with allies like the US and means there'll be more bullying to come.”
Fancy having to endure the dog botherer ranting in print, and then clicking on the AV offering to endure him ranting away in your earphones ...
Back to the ranting, which dedicated pond correspondents would have already copped a gob full of yesterday thanks to "Ned" and the bromancer ...
While the mercurial Trump tests allegiances and up-ends free trade agreements, including with friends like us, our Prime Minister is left hanging, failing to secure a meeting with the US President. Little wonder Chinese President Xi Jinping has chosen this moment to become chummy.
Albanese has allowed Australia to be played as a pawn in the superpower jousting between the communist dictator and the leader of the free world.
A Prime Minister who could not manage to spend six hours on the ground in Alice Springs to assess a crime spree and social dislocation has spent almost a full week being duchessed by China, failing to admonish Beijing for a series of trade punishments and military intimidations.
Weakness is provocative. Back home Albanese must await the next taunt from the bully because surely it will come, perhaps over the Port of Darwin.
In Beijing Albanese spoke like a beauty pageant contestant, aspiring to “peace and security in the region” without pointing out the hard reality that this has depended on the US military presence and alliances throughout the post-war era. He was either hiding his views on how to maintain security in the Asia-Pacific or he is ambivalent.
When I worked for foreign minister Alexander Downer in the back half of the Howard government, relations with China were fraught but constantly improving. Beijing was fascinated by our economic success, eager for our resources, mindful of our close security, intelligence and political links with the US, and watchful about our role in the region. Now China is toying with us, publicly listing grievances, punishing us with trade sanctions, intimidating us with spy ships and live-firing exercises and praising Albanese for a “turnaround” in the relationship because he offers minimal protests and even makes excuses for China’s actions.
The Chinese continue to buy our iron ore and our metallurgical coal to turn it into steel; they also buy our gas.
Yet they watch us weaken our economy with an expensive pivot away from fossil fuels, switching to renewable energy driven by turbines, solar panels and converters manufactured mainly in China with our raw materials.
We weaken ourselves while enriching our strategic rivals – genius. This is all done under the guise of reducing carbon emissions when the reality is that they now simply enter the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere rather than south of the equator. (The jobs also move north but stay there.)
What usually happens with the dog botherer is that he runs out of steam, as often happens with feeble minds, and then he begins a set of moans and whines about everything ...
So we get a trawl through the reptiles' current talking points, migrants, anti-Semitism, Gaza, and so on, yadda yadda, soup Nazi, etc. ...
Decades of indecision and inadequate spending have left our national defence preparedness below par. Submarine delays, poor drone and missile procurement, and problems with personnel recruitment and retention are key factors.
We have miserly national fuel reserves and increasing problems with electricity security. We have put ourselves precisely where any strategic rival would want us.
Since October 7, 2023, we have experienced an alarming decline in social cohesion with the emergence of violent anti-Semitism, notably among segments of our Muslim population. The Albanese government has been hypercritical of Israel, downgrading our support for the Middle Eastern democracy at the UN, further entrenching our diplomatic divergence from the US.
Albanese declares Australia is not “a central player in this conflict” yet his government has approved 3000 visas for Palestinians fleeing Gaza. This makes Australia a “central player” in resettling Gazans, taking possibly the largest cohort of any nation, apparently without adequate security checks.
Labor has admitted the immigration rate is too high and promised to rein it in, yet the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show permanent arrivals in May were the highest on record for that month. This is happening while the housing crisis escalates (Treasury advises Labor’s pledge to build 1.2 million houses in five years cannot be met) and unemployment is ticking up.
Having taken no substantive economic reform to the election, the Albanese government will now hold a “productivity roundtable” next month that increasingly looks like a forum to thrash out a government, unions and big business consensus on tax increases. There are few, if any, business leaders calling for significant cuts to government spending or eradication of federal-state duplication, much less ending the tortured and costly self-harm of the net-zero agenda.
The opposition under new leader Sussan Ley is conducting a policy, campaigning and organisational review. It is shell-shocked, depleted and unsure about its policies and values.
As a nation we are busy weakening ourselves from within while we are buffeted by external forces that are likely to worsen. There is no clear grasp of our national challenges, let alone the means to overcome them.
Trump is testing the Western world’s security and trade relationships in his transactional and unpredictable way. Xi is supporting malevolent state actors in Russia and Iran, intimidating much of East Asia, yet posing as a more reliable partner than the US.
Yet from Canberra and across the country we get mainly antagonism towards the US, denial about our economic challenges and endless pretence that our energy self-harm can save the planet. Our education standards are in comparative decline, productivity is stagnant, costs are escalating and the national debate is skin-deep.
The Albanese government is starting a fresh three-year term with a thumping majority, no useful plans and no real opposition. If ever we needed to be the lucky country, now is the time.
By golly, fair dibs, he's right about that one.
If ever the reptiles needed a lucky country, now is the time ...
Per Reuters, Trump sues Wall Street Journal over Epstein report, seeks $10 billion ...
...The president has vehemently denied the Journal report, which Reuters has not verified, and had warned Murdoch that he planned to sue. Dow Jones, the parent of the newspaper, is a division of News Corp.
"We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS 'article' in the useless 'rag' that is, The Wall Street Journal," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"I hope Rupert and his 'friends' are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case," Trump added.
A spokesperson for Dow Jones said in a statement: "We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit."
The lawsuit called Trump's alleged birthday greeting "fake," and said the Journal published its article to harm Trump's reputation.
“Tellingly, the Article does not explain whether Defendants have obtained a copy of the letter, have seen it, have had it described to them, or any other circumstances that would otherwise lend credibility to the Article,” the lawsuit said.
To prevail on his defamation claims, Trump must show the defendants acted with "actual malice," meaning they knew the article was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth.
A $10 billion award would far exceed the largest defamation judgments and settlements in recent history.
These include a $1.5 billion judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Fox News' settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.
"Ten billion dollars is a ridiculously high number," said Jesse Gessin, a lawyer with experience in defamation and First Amendment litigation. "It would be the largest defamation verdict in U.S. history."
Oh lucky days, oh happy days, say that again, so that the pond can roll it around trippingly on the tongue ...
"Ten billion dollars is a ridiculously high number," said Jesse Gessin, a lawyer with experience in defamation and First Amendment litigation. "It would be the largest defamation verdict in U.S. history."
Is this a sequel to that movie?
This is your classic win-win: pass the popcorn, love the spectacle.
This is your classic lose-lose.
The Chairman Emeritus loses? Aw shucks ...
The Cantaloupe Clown loses and is revealed to be a jolly consorter with a sex trafficker? Dearie me ...
Go the Kong, go the radioactive one ...
And so to close by abandoning the usual political 'toons - it's a Sunday and this weekend's set of reptile rants is more than enough - and instead feature a couple from The New Yorker that caught the pond's eye ... almost as forlorn and tragic as trying to work out who's Kong and who's Godzilla...
