In which the pond goes sedaceous and fails Herpetology 101 ...

The pond woke up in a frisky, sedaceous mood, but it only lasted until the pond contemplated the barren landscape known as the lizard Oz ...

The reptiles had at last caught up with King Donald as an object of interest:

BREAKING
Justice Department told Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files
Attorney General Pam Bondi also told the President at the meeting that the department decided to not release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect victims.
By Sadie Gurman, Annie Linskey, Josh Dawsey and Alex Leary

The pond almost felt like cracking a "how many reptiles does it take to change a lightbulb?" joke, along the lines of how many reptiles does it take to read a WSJ story?

Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files
Bondi also told president at the meeting that Justice decided to not release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect victims (archive link) 

BREAKING, BREAKING, this just in yesterday...

And so on, and so way too little, too late for the lizard Oz and the pond, and yet another incentive for the pond to do a Tootle and jump the tracks.

Yesterday for example, the pond frolicked with Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic, The Desperation of Donald Trump’s Posts, Trump’s social-media habits are different when he can’t control the narrative.(that's an archive link).

Charlie was already out of date - King Donald is insatiable when it comes to posting a bizarre mix of lies, and My Pillow and seniors hearing aid ads - but what he noted was delicious:

...Trump is an inveterate poster, known for his erratic style and late-night tirades. But over the weekend, as the world refused to move on from his administration’s bizarre handling of the Epstein files—which has led segments of his base to completely melt down—Trump went on a posting spree that was alarming, even by his own standards.
On Sunday alone, Trump posted 33 times on Truth Social, sending off 20 posts between 6:46 and 8:53 p.m. eastern. He demanded that the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians revert to their original names (the Redskins and Indians, respectively), and posted an AI-generated video of Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office set to the song “Y.M.C.A.,” by the Village People. Trump also shared a contextless, grainy video that looks like it was scraped from some viral social-media post. It includes no captions and features 25 stitched-together clips, set to music, of people doing wild or dangerous stunts: A woman appears to catch a charging cobra with her bare hands, a man does a forward flip from one moving skateboard to another, various people contort their bodies in strange ways, a dude stands on the footrests of a moving dirt bike.
Even some of Trump’s die-hard fans on Truth Social seemed caught off guard by the video, struggling to draw a connection between it and Trump’s politics. “Was expecting a video of you at the end!” one top commenter wrote. (A spokesperson for the White House did not answer my questions about why the commander in chief was posting an extreme-sports highlight reel on Sunday night.)
The bizarre video was immediately recognizable to me as the type of garbage that clogs the feeds of many people who still use Facebook, a platform that is filled with inscrutable slop posted by spammers and content farmers. By the early 2020s—before generative-AI images took over—Facebook had already transformed into a vast wasteland of low-quality memes, repurposed videos, and strange pages dedicated to clips like “Shelter Pit Bull Made His Bed Every Day Until a Family Adopted Him.” This type of content fits in a category that I have taken to calling “soft-brain scrolling.” It falls somewhere between probably harmless and not nutritious; it’s mostly low-quality algorithmic arbitrage that helps click farmers make a buck. Your confused relatives seem to love it.

And so on, and while at The Atlantic the pond also took in Emma Marris's AI Slop Might Finally Cure Our Internet Addiction, Chatbots are making so much of the web unreliable, they could nudge more people offline. (that's an archive link).

Emma had had more than enough of all the bilge and slop ...

Even before AI started taking over, the internet had been getting less and less fun for a while. Users have been complaining about Google Search degrading for years. Opening an app to get a ride, order takeout, or find a vacation house can be just as expensive and effortful as taking a taxi, calling in a delivery order, or booking a hotel once was. Social media is a grotesque, tragedy-exploiting, MechaHitler-riddled inferno. Where going online once evoked a wide-eyed sense that the world was at our fingertips, now it requires wading into the slop like weary, hardened detectives, attempting to parse the real from the fake.

Don't get the pond started on Google, Emma, though she sounded optimistic, to the point of delusional, about victims going off line.

Near the end of her piece came a link to Kaitlyn Tiffany's piece, Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet ‘Died’ Five Years Ago, A conspiracy theory spreading online says the whole internet is now fake. It’s ridiculous, but possibly not that ridiculous? (that's an archive link).

Person or bot or reptile, does it really matter?

It's all fake news Kaitlyn and the pond helps by feeding fake reptiles delivering fake news to all the fake AI bots out there, so that Google can put the results at the top of any search. Don't get the pond started on Google...

The pond also took in Alexandra Petri's howl, Are You Laughing Yet? Everyone can say exactly what they want, free of the fear of censorship, except by the government. (that's an archive link)

...Remember, censorship is when people don’t laugh at your jokes. Freedom is when your late-night show gets permanently taken off the air for financial reasons (16 million of them) and the president expresses his approval. Comedy is great again, which is to say, it’s funny only if the president says so. Jokes are back, baby! Airplane travel is the worst! Take my wife, please. She’s a green-card holder who’s been in the country for 25 years! Knock, knock! Who’s there? Sorry, they won’t identify themselves, but they say they’re here about the op-ed.
The Norwegian tourist who was denied entry by border officers—after the agents took a special interest in the meme of J. D. Vance he had on his phone—didn’t understand that when we say that comedy is legal again, we mean real comedy. This was clearly not comedy. This was somebody laughing at J. D. Vance. Comedy is when you laugh with J. D. Vance about people who don’t look to him like their ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Comedy is the memes that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House keep sharing about how Donald Trump is Superman and “my body is a machine that turns ICE funding into mass deportations” and “even E.T. knew when it was time to GO HOME”!
If you need any more clarity about what comedy is, here’s one of Trump’s favorite comedians (“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined.”) offering what has been identified as a joke: “You know what?” Gutfeld said on Fox News. “I’ve said this before: We need to learn from the Blacks, the way they were able to remove the power from the N-word by using it. So from now on, it’s ‘What up, my Nazi?’ ‘Hey, what up, my Nazi?’ Hey, what’s hanging, my Nazi?’”
Laugh? I thought I’d die! This joke is funny, because people are constantly saying that Gutfeld is a Nazi, and he is getting a little sick of it. So, to dodge the Nazi allegations, he’s riffing on the N-word! This is comedy now!
Comedy is legal again. You are free to say whatever you want, provided it’s a slur. You must say it, or President Trump won’t approve your new stadium! No, that’s not a joke. That’s completely serious.
You should know by now: Everything is serious, until it’s suddenly a joke and you were a fool for not laughing. Everything is a joke, until suddenly it’s serious and how dare you laugh. Everyone is trolling, until they aren’t, and even when they aren’t, they are. Everyone is always and never joking. It’s not a threat. It’s a joke. Comedy is legal again!

And so on, and you can see why the pond was feeling sedaceous, neigh fully treasonous when it came to paying the reptiles any attention at all. 

(BTW, for those who missed it, "sedaceous", or something similar sounding, was what what popped out of the orange orangutang's mouth when he tried to accuse Barak Hussein Obama of being seditious and treasonous. It was a nice try at using a brand spanking new word, but no cigar).

Is it any wonder that in The Echnida this morning John Hanscome mused on the way Horizons narrow for ill-at-ease US travellers.

Inter alia ...

An Ipsos Consumer Tracker survey published in May found that 27 per cent of Americans report they have international travel plans in the works for summer 2025 compared to 34 per cent last year.
And if Americans are dialling back their international travel plans, the rest of the world is giving the US a wide berth as well.
Canada leads the pack when it comes to avoiding its querulous southern neighbour. It normally accounts for the largest number of visitors to the US during the northern summer. Last year, 20 million Canadians visited. This year, the number of border crossings by car is down by a third and visits by air are also tanking.
Britons and Germans are also turning their backs on the US as a destination.
Australians are also thinking twice about US trips. Last year, the US was our fifth most popular destination; this year it's slipped to seventh position. The unfavourable exchange rate no doubt weighs heavily but stories about heavy-handed treatment at the border haven't helped either.
The self-imposed isolation the US is undergoing is regrettable, undermining the long-held notion that travel broadens the mind.

The joys of isolationism, and so on, and the pond felt a surge of mind narrowing when it looked over to the extreme far right of the lizard Oz ...

Oh dear, did Jenna just tale the cheap TG pronoun shot?

She did, she did.

Now there's a way to rule yourself out of a pond guernsey. Ditto Jack the Insider:

Seeing red as Greens (colour) blindly make murky transformation
Choose your pronoun and bicycle into a new Green landscape, where it’s OK if trees are lost to bike lanes, loyalty is demanded, and drab khakis are ditched for the blood red hue of a politically correct future, writes Jack the Insider.
By Jack the Insider
Columnist

The reptile obsession with pronouns is beyond the valley of the pathetic, as is the constant harping on the "politically correct".

Jack likes to present himself as an independent observer, but he's been inside the reptile hive mind way too long.

And look, there at the top of the digital reptile world ma, was petulant Peta with a bright spark idea:

Subsidise parents, not childcare centres
Coming up with a better system of childcare should be a no-brainer for an opposition led by a former childcare minister. Certainly, a real policy on a vital topic would be much better than gimmicks such as quotas for female candidates.
By Peta Credlin
Columnist

Enough with the talk of female quotas already, there's no way to prise power out of the grasp of aged old white guys, enabled by lickspittle female fellow travellers.

The reptiles also found space for Twiggy ...

We’ve vilified China as an ‘enemy’; Albanese is right to make friends
It’s time Australia and China shows the world – particularly my friends in North America – what is possible when respect triumphs over fear, and when ambition for a world no longer reliant on fossil fuels triumphs over complacency.
By Andrew Forrest

This form of mild heresy was rewritten by a reptile to that they could put it at the top of the news as an EXCLUSIVE ...

EXCLUSIVE
Suspicion of Xi’s China now a thing of the past, says Twiggy
Anthony Albanese is proving that Australia and the world do not need to be suspicious of Xi Jinping’s China and the two nations as friends can show Donald Trump what can be achieved, billionaire Andrew Forrest says.
By Paul Garvey

Really reptiles, is that how it goes? 

Might you not be better off with AI slop than tweaking and regurgitating Twiggy's copy, and pretending it's a news item? 

In desperation, the pond turned to Liz ...

Uncle Sam wants an independent ally, not a servile friend
Australia’s national debate tends to oscillate between fear of abandonment by the US and panic over being too closely aligned. We experienced a similar response with Britain in the past century.
By Elizabeth Buchanan

Really Liz, the pond isn't sure about that mythical Uncle Sam, but are you sure the orange orangutang doesn't want a servile friend? 

Are you sure he wants an independent ally?

Admittedly, his track record with friends is taking a beating at the moment ...

It turned out that the reptiles had fitted up Liz, because this was as close as she got to the notion of servility in her text:

The main task should be to reinvigorate Australian agency within the US alliance. There’s no doubt Uncle Sam would welcome it. Independence within the alliance is crucial to navigating our strategic realities. We must strengthen our own capabilities while deepening ties with Washington; investment in us is an investment in the alliance. But the investment in our defence capability cannot remain pegged to solutions arriving in the 2040s.
Pragmatism should be the hallmark of Australian strategic activity. AUKUS needs to be reframed to enhance Australian capabilities, not deepen dependencies. Canberra should be supporting US nuclear-powered sub­marine (SSN) maintenance and sustainment under AUKUS rather than pursuing an independent SSN fleet. Government could then divert funds to scalable autonomous solutions.

The pond loved it.

scalable autonomous solutions

The pond didn't have a clue what it might mean, but it sounded so grand and plausible.

All the same, the pond did note that to this point there hadn't been a single mention of the Gaza genocide currently going down...

For that you're better turning to a cartoonist of the Wilcox or Luckovich kind ...

The pond realised it was failing miserably in its herpetology studies, so decided to ease conscience by running a couple of lizard Oz editorials...

US leaves crackpot UNESCO, Trump right to dump American membership.
Editorial
less than 2 min read

It was only two minutes, so where's the harm?

Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US as funder-in-chief for UNESCO, which is supposedly the world’s paramount educational, scientific and cultural organisation, is as well founded now as it was when he pulled out in 2017 during his first White House term. Joe Biden foolishly restored the US to full membership after the 2020 election and stumped up more than $US600m in arrears.
But UNESCO has learned nothing. It remains the same sprawling, Paris-based bureaucracy, besotted by wokery on gender ...

Sorry, what could the pond do, it's a contractual requirement:

...and determined to push anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism while allowing itself to be used by Beijing, its second biggest funder, to downplay the fate of China’s oppressed Uighur minority. As US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce says, UNESCO has strayed far from its founding mission when, in 1945, Australia was among its 37 initial members. Instead of fulfilling the mandate it was given to encourage educational and cultural understanding across the globe, it has devolved into an organisation that works to advance divisive social and cultural causes. What other conclusion be drawn from UNESCO’s preoccupation with nonsensical wokery such as the gender equality quest in video games, the Transforming MEN’talities initiative to combat harmful norms of masculinity, and focusing on “climate change (that is) deepening the vulnerabilities of minority groups”? All this while setting out to offend Jews by designating Jewish holy sites as “Palestinian World Heritage” reserves, declaring Palestine is “occupied” by Israel, and condemning the Jewish state’s fight for survival against Hamas without criticising the terrorists’ murderous reign in Gaza.
The US first withdrew from UNESCO in 1983 when Ronald Reagan was president and he complained that the organisation “has extraneously politicised virtually every subject it deals with. It has exhibited hostility toward a free society, especially a free market, and a free press.”
That indictment is no less valid. Others among UNESCO’s 194 member-states would do well to reassess their commitment to what increasingly looks like a seriously crackpot body.

The pond supposes that counts as a mention of the Gaza genocide currently going down.

But what's this about the ICE loving fascistic mango Mussolini being all in on freedumb? And devoted to a free press?

(cf. Kim Wehle in The Bulwark, The Threat to Free Speech in Trump’s Unprecedented Wall Street Journal Suit, On the merits, this defamation case should be winnable for the newspaper. But the chilling effect is real and dangerous. Reptiles, heed the fate of your own kind, avoid becoming a stylish, attractive 'gator handbag for Melania).

The last the pond checked in on Mehdi Hasan at The Bulwark on YouTube, the MAGAts were all in on Franco, Catholic fundamentalism,autocracy, the KKK, Holocaust denial and the Nazis.

As for splendid isolationism and the abuse of friends, the pond made the mistake of catching up with Paul Krugman's About That Japan Deal, Arithmetic has a well-known globalist bias

So the Trump administration has triumphantly announced a trade deal with Japan, and I guess I should post something about it, even though my regular morning post — on a completely different topic — is already up.
There are three main things you should take away from this deal:
1. It will increase, not reduce, the U.S. trade deficit
2. It will accelerate America’s descent into crony capitalism
3. U.S. consumers are still facing a major price shock
The deal, as reported, involves imposing a tariff of “only” 15 percent on imports from Japan, mainly in return for a promise by the Japanese government to invest $550 billion in the United States. It appears that Japan will create a sovereign wealth fund for that purpose, and that Trump will have a say in how it invests.
So, first, the impact on the trade deficit. As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, there’s some basic arithmetic linking international investment and the trade balance. A few technical details aside,
U.S. trade deficit = Net foreign investment in the United States
This isn’t a theory, it’s just accounting. So if the deal leads to more investment in the U.S., it must, necessarily, lead to a bigger trade deficit.
How, exactly, would that work? The most likely channel is that capital inflow from Japan will lead to a stronger dollar than we would have had otherwise, making U.S. goods less competitive across the board.
It has been clear for a while that Trump and co. don’t understand or believe in balance of payments accounting, that they want both a smaller trade deficit and more foreign investment in America. Now their basic lack of understanding is embodied in a specific deal.

And so on, and including this update ...

Update: Friends have been pointing out that this deal means that Japanese cars will pay 15 percent tariffs, while US car producers will still be paying 50 percent on imported steel. Not exactly a strategy to boost manufacturing. What were they thinking? They probably weren’t thinking.

And so to another lizard Oz editorial:

Net-zero confidence we are heading in correct direction, Right to have a different opinion is a fundamental part of democracy.
Editorial
2 min read

So. this is going to be the reptile game in the near future, a both sidering the heck out of climate science and climate change:

The eruption of concern in conservative forces about the wisdom and viability of a net-zero target for 2050 points to a prolonged period of instability in opposition ranks and further proof the climate wars as political currency live on. This is not all bad. Opposition is the right place to stress-test different opinions. And the evidence so far from Australia’s decarbonisation experience is that it is proving difficult and expensive, and any progress being made cutting emissions in Australia is being quickly swallowed up by increasing emissions elsewhere, notably China.
There is a strong argument that ambitious targets provide certainty for the high level of investment that is needed by business to take action. But it also must be noted the loudest voices in support of tough action often have a vested financial interest in that being the case.
A commitment to net zero must not be an end in itself. The right to have a different opinion is a fundamental part of democracy and it is something the Coalition should encourage across the full suite of policy areas. Nowhere is this more important than Australia’s climate change response, as well as the need to strengthen the economy and lift productivity. It is merely stating reality that these things are not always aligned. And that is the point. Rising energy costs are a drain on households and business. The federal budget is being called on to subsidise household electricity bills, support renewable energy projects and assist high-energy-use manufacturing enterprises that are vital to the national interest. Critical manufacturing capacity already has been lost.
One danger in the large majority that the Albanese government has been given as a consequence of Australia’s preferential voting system is that it may feel an overinflated sense of mandate. What must be remembered is the fact, in terms of primary votes, Labor was not a first choice for most voters by a large measure.
Those within the Coalition calling for a reconsideration of the pace and nature of climate action can claim some weighty bedfellows. Former British prime minister Tony Blair has called for a major rethink of net-zero policies, arguing that limiting energy consumption and fossil fuel production is “doomed to fail”. The British Conservative Party has joined Reform UK in opposing net-zero emissions by 2050. US President Donald Trump has withdrawn his country from the Paris Agreement and cancelled a host of government subsidies for renewable energy. Meanwhile, the global use of fossil fuels as well as emissions of carbon dioxide continue to grow.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s claim that, in calling for a rethink, Nationals politicians Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack were “betraying people in rural and regional Australia” who would “pay the price of drought and flood, which will be more common and severe under climate change” is glib. Mr Joyce correctly argues that Nationals support for net zero by 2050 was based on a range of financial trade-offs including productivity-boosting bush infrastructure, none of which has been delivered. The net-zero pushback is not restricted to the Nationals. Liberal divisions in Western Australia and Queensland are calling for net zero by 2050 to be abandoned. Victorian opposition leader Brad Battin has put the state Coalition’s policy on net zero up for review.
The pushback reflects a growing frustration about the cost, progress and impact of what has been happening on the ground. Under pressure to deliver, the Albanese government is likely to turn to more authoritarian measures to get its way. A bigger conversation about where we are heading and what the costs and impact will be is always welcome.

Climate science denialism as a big conversation? 

That's so reptile 2010, with a brutal Brutus twist ...

Last and certainly least, the pond decided to chamber another round, just to fill up its reptile quota for the day ...

It turned out that despite the bold presentation, this was just another two minute read ...

The header: Anthony Albanese has a question time party as lackadaisical Sussan Ley leads an almost invisible Coalition, Sussan Ley’s team, dominated by allies and rookies, will take time to find their feet. Alex Hawke, the controversial centre-right factional warlord, didn’t jump to his feet once.

The caption: Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Anthony Albanese face off in question time on Wednesday. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

The mysterious invitation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

It looks like it's going to be reptile open ssseasson on Sussssane for the immediate future:

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers couldn’t wipe the smiles off their faces as the government cruised through its first question time since Labor’s landslide election victory.
As Sussan Ley and Coalition frontbenchers struggled to lay blows on the Prime Minister, the optics of 94 Labor MPs versus 43 Coalition MPs in the chamber was a stark reminder of the long road back for the Liberals and Nationals. They say three years is a long time in politics but many Coalition MPs believe a return to power is unattainable for at least six years.
Ley’s new shadow ministerial line-up, dominated by allies and rookies, will take time to find their feet. The Opposition Leader did not engage directly with Albanese across the dispatch box, was glued to her phone and rarely turned around to engage with her frontbench team.

The pond knew it was a dire situation when the reptiles decided to run an EXPLAINER, Chief Political Correspondent Geoff Chambers runs through everything that happened in the first question time of the new parliament.

Nah, not really ...

Alex Hawke, the controversial centre-right factional warlord rewarded by Ley with the critical job of opposition manager of business, didn’t jump to his feet once.
Coalition insiders were underwhelmed by Hawke’s tepid performance. It’s his job to disrupt Labor ministers, demand documents be tabled and test the boundaries of Speaker Milton Dick. One Liberal MP described the first question time of the 48th parliament as “grim”. “I reckon I had a few microsleeps during that one,” the MP said.
While Ley’s first question about Labor’s super tax failed to mention the super tax and allowed Albanese off the hook, sticking on one theme was the right strategy. The problem with elevating super tax attacks over the economy and productivity was that Peter Dutton’s opposition virtually ignored Chalmers’ tax slug ahead of the May 3 election.
Snubbing Chalmers and asking newly-minted Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino and the PM about the super tax impacts and hit on unrealised capital gains attracted a few smirks from Labor and ­Coalition MPs.
Albanese predictably mocked Ley, Ted O’Brien, Tim Wilson and David Littleproud for waging a super tax scare campaign … for the 2028 election.

How unfair, they're really just following their master's orders ... you know, the ongoing reptile campaign of fear, loathing and unnamed sources featured this day in what is laughably called the "news" section...

EXCLUSIVE
‘I hate the principle, but …’: Labor MPs privately concede flaws of super tax model
Labor MPs are privately concerned about Jim Chalmers’ controversial proposed tax on unrealised gains in its current form but claim they can see no alternative to fix the budget’s revenue crisis.
By Matthew Cranston and Sarah Ison

At this point the reptiles slipped in a graph ...

A cartoon would have sufficed ...

And that was about it, as the reptiles tried their very best to carry on regardless ...

Labor’s heroes who ousted ­Coalition and Greens leaders and MPs, including Ali France (Dickson), Sarah Witty (Melbourne), Renee Coffey (Griffith), Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane), Claire Clutterham (Sturt), Emma Comer (Petrie), Zhi Soon (Banks), Gabriel Ng (Menzies), David Moncrieff ­(Hughes) and Jess Teesdale (Bass), were handed Dorothy Dixers and praise for their victories and maiden speeches.
As the Liberals and Nationals review their policies and manage splits over net zero, Albanese and Bowen had plenty of material to play with.
O’Brien, who replaced Angus Taylor as opposition Treasury spokesman, was singled out by Labor ministers over his role in leading Dutton’s nuclear energy policy, which Albanese quipped helped to re-elect his government.
Bowen also poked fun at former Nationals’ leaders Michael McCormack and Barnaby Joyce over their bromance and opposition to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Putting the jokes aside, Albanese has a big task ahead keeping his enormous caucus in line, delivering on election promises and targets, and strengthening Australia’s productivity, economic growth and national security.

Nuking the country to save the planet? Nuking net-zero as the new strategy? Nuking renewables and demanding everyone take solar off their roof tops? 

Luckily the climate crisis is all just the fervid imaginings of a religious cult, currently with its HQ in the waters off croweater land ... and so deservedly celebrated by the infallible Pope...