In which it's sub time with Cameron and the bromancer, and there's some fun with smokestacks as a bonus ...

 

And so the genocide continues, with the deliberate targeting of hospital and journalists, and if it bleeds, it leads, right?

Not so fast, please, the pond is stuck in the hive mind. 

If it bleeds, it recedes, so that the reptile obsession with subs might surface yet again...

What little attention was paid to the ongoing genocide featured a presentation that was impeccably reptilian, with the nauseating excuse offered by Benji featured at the top ...

'TRAGIC MISHAP'
Five journalists among 20 dead in Israeli strike on Gaza hospital
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike that killed journalists from AP and Reuters was a ‘tragic mishap,’ while the IDF said it ‘doesn’t target journalists as such’.
By Associated Press

Such a reptilian slant, so many "tragic mishaps" in the genocidal killing fields.

Speaking of Lord Haw Haw style apologists, the reptiles didn't even take the Media Watch trolling of simpleton Sharri (full disrespect) in When Benny Met Sharri, though the report on the Walkley shame lost the pond with the line "few could really argue Sharri Markson is an unserious journalist."

Really, Mr. both siderist Besser? 

The pond awaits your next revelation, "few could really argue Tucker Carlson is an unserious journalist." Or insert any other reptile intent on making a name for themselves with a conspiracy theory or three.

Over on the extreme far right, the ongoing Gaza genocide also was despatched to the cornfields ...

Apologies yet again, the pond doesn't connect with the real world, it dwells in the meta-world of the reptiles, so let's get on with it, albeit with a sinking feeling...

It would have been noted by expert herpetologists that Joe, lesser member of the Kelly gang had the lead story early in the morning ...

AUKUS
Lethal pivot for AUKUS II: think tank urges dramatic rewrite
As Richard Marles arrives in the US, a leading Washington think tank is urging an AUKUS overhaul – including a shake-up of Pillar II to prioritise autonomy, long-range strike capacity and integrated air defence.
By Joe Kelly

That sent the reptiles into a panic. 

What if the doddering, senile King Donald bunged on a do, and Australia was left out of it? (Why hasn't he made an offer to make us a US state? Are we less appealing than Canucks?)

Cue a very concerned Cameron, right below Joe, in a state of turbocharged panic ...

The header: Time to turbocharge AUKUS deal and prove doomsayers wrong, The AUKUS submarine is critical for the security of Australia’s region, but more must be done to measure its progress and bring the historic enterprise into the real world.

The caption for the snap featuring the sort of kit that can produce an orgasm in reptile land, Render of the SSN-AUKUS Nuclear-Powered Submarine. Credit: BAE Systems

Despite the hysterical turbo charged header featuring doomsayers, the very concerned Cameron could only manage a three minute panic ... 

These horses reptiles are quick to startle, and quick to run out of oats...

The AUKUS submarine pact has been allowed to drift for too long and must be wrestled to the ground, made accountable, more simple and promoted as a strategic game-changer against China.
That is the overwhelming flavour of the timely report written by the Pentagon’s former AUKUS man Abraham Denmark and Charles Edel of Washington’s Centre for Strategic and Inter­national Studies.
It argues that AUKUS has been subjected to relentless attacks by its opponents, in part because its long-term horizons are vague and its progress and benefits are not being measured or properly promoted.
It says it is time for the four-year-old trilateral pact to move on from endless debate about whether it will or will not happen, and enter the real world of measurable milestones.
The report makes the overdue call to simplify the so-called Pillar II of AUKUS which is supposed to focus, rather vaguely, on emerging capabilities and technologies.
It says Pillar II of AUKUS should be limited to only three practical and urgent areas – autonomous systems, long-range strike and integrated air defence – rather than on areas such as AI, quantum and other emerging technologies.
This is to be welcomed because the beating heart of AUKUS has always been about Pillar I – the ­acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. Pillar II has been little more than a feel-good futuristic technology-sharing concept that no-one can explain, much less put into practice.
According to the authors, AUKUS urgently needs greater oversight through both Donald Trump and Anthony Albanese appointing special representatives on AUKUS.

The reptile AV distraction also featured a most attractive kind of kit, second orgasm for the day, The Pentagon has warned Australia that without a boost to the defence budget, it risks failing to meet its AUKUS commitments and could become vulnerable. The US Defence Department claims Australia's annual defence spend is too low and should be raised to 3.5 per cent, which is what it deems to be the “new global standard”. According to reports, the Pentagon has expressed concerns that current defence spending is not high enough to maintain a Virginia-class submarine fleet and modernise the ADF.

The very concerned Cameron carried on ...

They call for an annual trilateral written report to detail the achievements, challenges, budgets, etc, to help co-ordinate the AUKUS nations and let the public know the progress of the nuclear-powered submarine plan.
They also say more needs to be done to explain the strategic significance of AUKUS and what would be lost if it were to fail or be abandoned.
They say a failed AUKUS would lead to a weaker and less credible America in the Indo-­Pacific, undercut Western deterrence and hand a huge propaganda victory to both China and Russia.
The importance of this report lies in its timing. AUKUS’s reputation has suffered a death by a thousand cuts as critics focused on the potential negatives of the pact and very little on the positives.
Yes, it is true that the US production and sustainment of its Virginia-class submarines is behind schedule, raising concerns over whether the US would sell three to five of the boats to Australia in the 2030s. That is an unanswerable question, but the odds are strong that the US would still honour such a major pact with a close ally, especially once Australia has invested $3bn into the US submarine enterprise and allowed US submarines to rotate and be maintained out of Perth.
It is also true that the Pentagon is currently reviewing the AUKUS program, but, as this report states, the review is likely only to strengthen the pact by refocusing on “delivery and deterrence”.

Eek, so all that reptile panic about that Elbridge too far (of the Colby kind) was just a red herring, a lot of squawking about nothing, and this is the new panic? Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has urged Australia and other Western nations to “step up to the plate” instead of criticising the United States. “In Australia, you are cosying up to China and then you are criticising the United States,” Mr Spicer told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “Before you criticise the United States when we are willing to give you submarines under AUKUS, stop cosying up to China.”

Sean Spicer? Shouldn't he be dancing, period, instead of blathering to the Bolter, period? Has he learned how to judge a crowd's size yet? Period ...

Never mind, the very concerned Cameron was keen to remind the hive mind what when it came to pointless, meaningless, completely useless wars, Australia was always keen to participate ...

Arguably the biggest potential weakness for AUKUS – and one this report points out – is that Australia is not doing the heavy lifting on defence spending required to properly fund the AUKUS submarine program.
It says “more funding on a faster timeline with specific delineated benchmarks” is needed “to reassure Australia’s partners it is doing enough”.
The biggest furphy in the AUKUS debate is the claim that the US would not sell its sub­marines to Australia unless it could be sure they would be used alongside the US in any regional conflict, most likely the defence of Taiwan against Chinese attack.
No US administration would ever make a formal request like that of an ally, knowing full well that no ally could ever make such a commitment.
The US itself refuses to make any military commitment to defend Taiwan, so it could hardly expect Australia to do so.
In any case, Australia’s history of alliance behaviour in times of conflict – from the World Wars to Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq – has never been one of not participating, especially if such a threat was a country in our own region. It is frankly inconceivable that Australian submarines would not be involved in some form alongside US submarines in a conflict involving China. Yet formal guarantees can never and should never be given. Let’s hope this report begins the process of transforming AUKUS from a theoretical, futuristic concept into the real world of measurable achievements and progress.

At this point, the pond reminded itself that it went on a detour with the keen Keane in Crikey, as he scribbled If Americans can’t rely on Trump to protect them, how can we? Donald Trump is now downgrading America’s intelligence capability. For countries dependent on that capability like Australia, it’s another sign we’re on the wrong end of a bad deal. (*archive link)

...From an ally’s perspective, not merely have we allied ourselves with an increasingly fascistic regime in Washington — one supportive of the greatest enemy the West has — but with a provider of intelligence that has systematically downgraded its intelligence capability, installed people accused of being “Russian assets” into the highest positions of civilian control over that capability, and sent a strong signal that providing intelligence inconsistent with what Trump wants is a sackable offence.
To the question of whether the US would support Australia’s security in a conflict must now be added another: whether America’s intelligence-gathering capacity could enable such support, given that the only intelligence acceptable in Washington now is that which flatters the ego of the country’s would-be autocrat. That’s putting aside the question of how much it aligns with Australia’s values if our security guarantor is a fascist kleptocracy.
This comes back to risk management. What is the risk that the assumptions underpinning our security and defence decisions are wrong? Not merely has the risk that the US would decline to support Australia grown from trivial to significant, but also its capacity to do so has been deliberately diminished.
Our risk management — of the risks most fundamental to Australia’s survival and sovereignty — is now hope-based: hope that Trump and MAGA Republicanism will be an historical blip, that everything will revert to “normal” in 2029, that America isn’t a failing empire too busy ripping itself apart and building a dictatorship to function constructively in the world.
Remember, too, that thanks to Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles, Trump’s intelligence officials are now integrated “seamlessly” into Australia’s defence intelligence framework, while Trump’s state department officials rotate through the department of foreign affairs and trade in the areas of “technical security, cyber security, and threat analysis“. How is the skewing of US intelligence to feed Trump’s ego, rather than identifying threats, impacting Australia’s bureaucracy?
As with AUKUS, the risk to Australia regarding its US intelligence links comes not from an unlikely but increasingly possible change to the status quo, but a continuation of it — a status quo in which US intelligence leadership is systematically undermined from within, and intelligence officials prepared to call it as they see it, not as the president wants it, are punished.
Or think of it this way: it’s 2065, and a change in leadership in Russia leads to the opening of FSB archives. Located within them is clear proof that the long-dead Donald Trump was indeed, as some have claimed, recruited or blackmailed into becoming a Russian asset in the 1980s or 1990s. His presidencies were, later generations discover, entirely the work of a man acting with an agenda to not only undermine the West and bolster autocratic states like Russia, but also to actively destroy the alliance structure underpinning Western security, foster division and hatred in Western democracies, turn the US into an autocracy, and set the global economic environment ablaze.
He was, they learn, the greatest intelligence triumph in history — for Russia.
Nonsensical stuff, of course. Except, if that were the case, would Trump be acting in any way different from how he has since January?
The challenge for Australian policymakers — especially the rusted-on Americaphiles in defence, intelligence and the ALP — is determining how far Trump has to go before they accept we’re on the wrong side of a poor deal with a United States gone very bad indeed. Their indifference to what is happening is starting to look less like a Pollyannaish hope that it all goes away, and more like dangerous recklessness.

Well yes, Ukraine routinely betrayed, Gaza driven into the ground in the hope of a real estate deal, armed troops patrolling big US cities, a revenge tour which sees the FBI as a form of retribution... 

It's all too much ...though it keeps a few tabloids in business ...

North Korea as the latest distraction? The senior has his zillionth flub? JD embarrassed? 

Not really likely, not even when he was doing it with that couch ... he was completely shameless, too thick to realise his shame.

So many distractions, so little time, though it keeps cartoonists in business ...

Who'd want to run with this carnival of clowns? Who'd want to be a part of this circus?

The pond is of course being entirely rhetorical, because whenever straying into the hive mind, the bromancer is always near to hand ...

The header: Australia stands exposed as AUKUS stranded by inaction, China’s military build-up is unprecedented in modern history, with policymakers drawing comparisons to the rise of Germany and Japan before World War II.

The caption for the snap featuring the kit that produced the third reptile orgasm for the day: The Virginia-class attack submarine USS California (SSN 781) underway during sea trials. Picture: Chris Oxley

The reptiles assured the pond that the bromancer had spent a full five minutes having one of his regular meltdowns ...

It’s now clear. The AUKUS agreement is in a slow-burning crisis. The next six months are crucial. The onus is primarily on Canberra but Washington and London are also at fault. No one is doing enough to make AUKUS happen.
This has been obvious for some time. But I form the conclusion anew after reading a report by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Its authors, Abraham Denmark and Charles Edel, don’t use the word crisis but outline unaddressed critical shortcomings.
The cancellation of AUKUS now would devastate the credibility of both Washington and Canberra. Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute argues that Canberra pulling out of AUKUS would probably destroy our US alliance.
The CSIS report sets out the positive AUKUS vision. If done right, it’s “the boldest strategic declaration of the 21st century”. AUKUS pillar one provides nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines for Australia from the 2030s. Pillar two provides for integrated military technology sharing and development.
The purpose of AUKUS, the report makes clear, is military technology sharing, which will enlarge industrial capacity benefits and confer general economic benefits. But centrally AUKUS is about deterrence.
As Denmark and Edel write: “At its core, AUKUS has always been about deterrence against aggression from potential adversaries who threaten wars of expansion against their neighbours, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s looming threat against Taiwan.”
The CSIS report doesn’t say this but the Albanese government has recently become so squeamish about saying anything Beijing doesn’t want to hear that it has lost the capacity to explain what AUKUS is for. In my view, if a government can’t comprehensively explain deterrence it will prove impossible to sustain the financial, political, social and military commitment AUKUS requires.
The CSIS report explains the advantages to the US from AUKUS. There will be a submarine rotational base in Perth where US nuclear subs will spend a lot of time. This will also provide a maintenance facility and the US is desperately short of maintenance at the moment, to the extent that this is compromising its ability to deploy its submarine forces. And in submarines it has clear military superiority over the People’s Republic of China and anyone else for that matter.
The authors comment: “Most importantly, for deterrence, a rotational presence from HMAS Stirling will quickly provide the US access to an operational base for its SSNs (nuclear-powered submarines) in a critical location west of the international dateline, astride the Indian Ocean and close to the South China Sea.” The need for allied deterrence of Beijing is self-evident, but the CSIS report makes the point: “This (Chinese) build-up of conventional and military forces is unprecedented in modern history, with policymakers repeatedly drawing comparisons to the rise of German and Japanese military power prior to World War II.”
With its close ally, Australia, possessing nuclear-powered submarines, with US forces rotating through Australia, with an enhanced British nuclear submarine industry, Washington seeks “to create a far more complex and challenging strategic and operational environment for its potential adversaries and to diminish the prospect of successful military adventurism”.
It can’t be stressed enough that this is all designed to prevent war, to prevent military conflict and the loss of innocent life. Deterrence works, but only if it’s militarily and politically credible.

It can't be stressed enough? The reptiles' very own Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches has always been a war monger, has always loved the smell of napalm in the morning ...

See Robert Manne in The Monthly with Murdoch's War (that's an archive link)

Inter alia...

Well yes, but a publicist's job never ends, especially when selling a lust for war ...

So what’s making the prospects of AUKUS bleak?
One factor is US industrial failure. The US needs to build more than two Virginia-class subs per year but let its shipyards and workforce decline to the extent that it never reached that level and in 2024 it was building nuclear-powered subs at the rate of 1.13 per year.
Maintenance is an even bigger issue. In 2023, the US notionally had 48 Virginia subs. But only 32 were operationally ready. That’s less than half what the navy regards as essential, namely 66.

Terrifying stuff, an horrendous ordeal for the bromancer, quick, someone rustle up an orgasm for him, United States Navy Virginia Class submarine USS Mississippi arrives at Fleet Base West, Rockingham, Western Australia for a routine port visit. Picture: News Corp

On with the Sisyphean life of the publicist ...

The US has invested new money to build up its capacity but this latest funding increase is a one-off, not a regular part of the US defence budget.
The US won’t sell any Virginias to Australia if Canberra is not seen as a strong, reliable ally. No one, least of all the US, would expect any nation to commit to going to war, for example over Taiwan, before such a choice becomes unavoidable. But Australian forces have committed with the Americans in every major engagement since World War I. It’s also true that in any military conflict with the PRC, the US-Australia joint communications facilities would be a target; so would US forces in Australia; so would Australian forces if there’s the slightest chance they could support the US.
As part of normal alliance evolution, Washington is asking that Australia get involved in joint military contingency planning so that if there were conflict, and Australia decided to be involved, the two militaries could do so effectively. My judgment is that under any Australian government other than the Albanese government this would be routine. But the Albanese government is apparently so terrified of offending Beijing that it won’t commit even to this.
The CSIS report makes clear that the Australian government is not devoting sufficient resources to the AUKUS project or, I would say, to defence generally.
The report comments: “Only six countries currently possess the ability to build nuclear-propulsion submarines. Doing so requires an extraordinarily complex knowledge base, a nuclear-trained workforce, a robust industrial base and the requisite budget … This does not come cheap.”
The report comments that of the three AUKUS partners Australia is furthest away from the industrial capabilities it needs. Consider this. The European NATO partners have agreed with the Trump administration that they need to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Yet not one of those nations is embarking on a program to buy and build nuclear submarines from scratch.
Despite fatuous claims about the extent of defence spending increases, when Anthony Albanese came to office defence accounted for 2 per cent of GDP. It’s just above that now. No one thinks this adequate. The Albanese government looks likely to produce the worst of all worlds, gutting the rest of the defence budget to pay for AUKUS but not even doing that sufficiently to make AUKUS work. In trying to do defence on the cheap, it could destroy everything.
The report is withering on AUKUS pillar two. It has been going for four years and delivered not a single weapon in combat. AUKUS pillar two should stop its woolly talk, stop its twittering about getting new countries involved, and focus on real, deliverable military capabilities.
No country, and Australia is by far the worst, is showing the urgency AUKUS needs to succeed. At this stage AUKUS is not enhancing deterrence. The report sensibly suggests an annual trilateral AUKUS review statement, a potentially brilliant innovation. But as things stand, it comments, “the goal of enhancing deterrence … will remain rhetorical rather than tangible”.
Good grief.

The pond has no idea what prompted Golding, but his 'toon seemed to fit ...

So did Wilcox's outing, celebrating the wagon to which the bromancer wants us hitched ...

And so to a short bonus, with Geoff chambering a round ...

The header: Child’s play for Anthony Albanese as Coalition channels Willy Wonka in question time, Anthony Albanese isn’t breaking a sweat in parliament as the Opposition struggles to land meaningful blows, instead resorting to Willy Wonka references and Rocky quotes.

The caption: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time on Monday at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Don't get the pond wrong, it would rather be scribbling about other matters. 

Even that once great newspaper, featured in a not bad movie, now destined to die in the darkness of a billionaire's pocket, senses that something might be going down ...

Eek, not a love of whale-killing machines... and those interested in the maps can head off to the archive, there to see...

All the same, it's sort of related because wacky, zany "nuke the country to save the planet" Ted featured in this chambering of comedy highlights ...

Anthony Albanese isn’t breaking a sweat in question time as the ­Coalition fixates on Willy Wonka economics and fails to land a blow on the Labor government.
At the start of the third sitting week of the 48th parliament, the Prime Minister looks completely untroubled by Sussan Ley’s ­Coalition. Question time has become a snore fest dominated by Labor’s Dorothy Dixers and ­predictable attacks on a Coalition that is lacking bite and focus.
After last week’s economic reform roundtable fizzer, there was plenty of ammunition for Ley and Ted O’Brien to have a crack.

Before the "having a crack" bit came the snap, Ted O'Brien on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Take it away Ted, sock us with your zingers, have that crack ...

O’Brien, who is mercilessly chipped by Labor MPs over his role in devising Peter Dutton’s ­nuclear power plan, needs to stop his pop culture references and get serious.
Delivering one of the wackiest political speeches in history ahead of Jim Chalmers’ roundtable, which for some reason he attended, O’Brien obsessed over a ­“secretive chocolate factory, the grand magician Willy Wonka, his army of obedient little Oompa Loompas and golden tickets”.
He mentioned “the Candy Man”, his moniker for Chalmers, 15 times.
On Friday, after the three-day roundtable ended with a whimper, O’Brien switched from Roald Dahl to Sylvester Stallone and belted out Rocky’s famous line: “Aaaaa-drian!”
O’Brien’s fascination with Willy Wonka was easy fodder for the Treasurer on Monday.
“When I was told that the member for Fairfax gave a speech about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I confess – the word Won-ka was almost the word that came to mind,” Chalmers said.
This is the quality of politics in this country.
And it distracts from Labor fixing its leaky budget and lifting dire productivity and economic growth.

Pause to wipe tears from eyes inspired by reptile tears, for another snap, Sussan Ley on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Geoff did his best with the damaged goods, but what's a reptile to do?

In her defence, Opposition Leader Ley inherited a weak economic narrative from Dutton.
Albanese and his ministers repeat the line that the Coalition supported higher taxes and higher deficits at the May 3 election.
The uncomfortable truth for the Coalition is the statement is accurate.
The other uncomfortable truth is the Albanese government can cherrypick a whole raft of ­Coalition ideas and make them their own. With 94 seats, Albanese can choose the most effective Dutton policies and use them to prop-up priorities like Labor’s housing agenda.
The Coalition should get stuck into Albanese and Chalmers over speculation about secret plans for tax hits, record spending ­blowing up the budget, the relationship between the Prime Minister and Treasurer, the effectiveness of Labor’s Future Made in Australia and the lack of urgency around turbocharging business investment and productivity.
It is becoming crystal clear that Albanese will not allow Chalmers’ economic reform ambitions to undermine his grand plan for Labor to rule long-term.
Asked about higher tax proposals raised by the Grattan Institute, Albanese on Monday said “academics talk in an academic world; what I do is live in the real world”.
The alternative view inside Labor to being ultra conservative is that Albanese faces equal risk if he doesn’t present a bold, longer-term reform agenda.
With political capital to burn, expect Albanese to take major tax reforms to the 2028 election. But those expecting immediate action shouldn’t hold their breath.

The even better news is that the immortal Rowe is back to celebrate ...

How he loves this mob, smokestacks and all ...

... but he hasn't lost his anal obsession ...

The pond realises it's gone on too long, but suggests this feature is worth a sub as a way of finding out what's going down in that other sociopath's kingdom...

And this is just for fun, and features beating of meat, the sort of meat-beating that the lizard Oz does daily ...