The pond was surprised to see petulant Peta hover back into view with an invitation to blather about Kryptonian aliences, but there she was, top of the world ma, early in the morning...
She's someone who knows how to fester ugliness in the hive mind ...
When mainstream leaders don’t take seriously the big issues that worry voters, they risk empowering the populists and even the extremists.
By Peta Credlin
Columnist
Has there ever been more unsightly onion munching than in her years behind the throne.
The last time the pond sighted petulant Peta in the hive mind was way back on 24th July with 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.
At no point in this new outing did she mention the piquant news that Thomas Sewell was originally a Kiwi from across the dutch ... and then dressed himself up as a honorary ersatz Oz oi oi Nazi.
Stuff it, what's the point of reading the reptiles if they leave out the juicy bits?
You can read about him here at Stuff, and if you can be bothered, petulant Peta being silent on the matter is in the archive ...
Never let it be said that the pond won't find a way to make correspondent lives more miserable than necessary.
What else? Well China stayed all the go ...
Just look at all the kit on the move this morning...
Glasgow lead the way with a willing double header ...
Menacing Xi warns world China’s rise is ‘unstoppable’
It was the first time the Chinese President, Vladimir Putin and Kim Kong-un had been together in person, with Xi Jinping sending a barely coded message to Washington that Beijing will not be pushed around. Donald Trump was furious.
By Will Glasgow
An unnerving dawn in the West: Xi’s projection of his new world order
Yes, feel uneasy about the PLA’s ever more lethal military equipment. But don’t lose sight of the other half of Xi’s global project.
There were others in the parade, with Ben packing it ...
Killer drones, autonomous subs: the hi-tech weaponry China showcased
Beijing’s Victory Day parade has revealed previously unseen missiles and autonomous weapons, as Western experts warn of China’s rapidly advancing military capabilities | WATCH
By Ben Packham
‘Organ transplants for youth’: Xi, Putin’s real hot topic at parade
As Putin, Xi and Kim approached the rostrum to view China’s military parade, a hot mic moment caught their conversation. It wasn’t about missiles.
by Richard Spencer
Any thought of mentioning King Donald, Epstein or all the rest was immediately swept from mind ...
Faced with this terrifying parade, the pond knew what had to be done, the pond knew that the bromancer would be in a hawkish mood, feeling his warrior oats...
The pond knew that there was just one man standing tall, and saving the pond from a never ending diet of fried rice ...
The header: With power on parade, Xi Jinping sends a clear message to the world, Wednesday’s spectacle was a huge success for Xi Jinping and a big poke in the eye for Donald Trump and, more generally, for the Western democracies.
The caption for the sort of kit the bromancer yearns for: Armoured vehicles and soldiers are seen during a military parade marking in Tiananmen Square. Picture: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
It took just four minutes for the bromancer to go into full frenzied hysteria mode, though the pond found it passing strange that in his header the bromancer placed King Donald amongst the democracies ...
Surely at the least King Donald is a wannabe dictator, an actual authoritarian, a monarch, who in his own words can do anything he likes ...
Pay no heed to any of that, instead join the bromancer well down his favourite rabbit hole (say hello to Bugs in passing)...
This was the message of Beijing’s great Victory Day military parade and associated heads of government gatherings.
It was a huge success for the PRC President, Xi Jinping, and a big poke in the eye for Donald Trump and, more generally, for the Western democracies.
It was a symbolic success, a display success, but also a demonstration of raw military power and raw geopolitical power.
The reptiles chimed in with a visual EXCLUSIVE, The Australian's Cameron Stewart breaks down China’s latest military hardware, offering analysis on what the arsenal reveals about the nation’s growing power and global ambitions.
The bromancer did his best to explain away King Donald, what with him being an immensely skilled negotiator, adept at any deal ...
Put it this way. In his first term, Trump tried to win North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, away from the axis of authoritarians, to lessen the nuclear threat from North Korea and change its political evolution. Trump got nothing from this nonsense. Instead Pyongyang now sends troops to fight for Putin in Ukraine.
Xi has lately tried to win India away from its evolving strategic alignment with the US and its allies. And there was Modi, betrayed and humiliated by Trump, embracing Xi and Putin.
That’s a big victory for Xi and a big nothing for Trump.
Trump, meanwhile, was reduced to impotent social media posts, accusing Xi, Putin and Kim of conspiring against America. If that’s his view, why has Trump so assiduously cultivated the dictators and alienated the democrats?
The pond almost fainted with surprise and shock. The pond hadn't been expecting that last sentence.
Had the bromancer at last understood the true nature of King Donald and his yearning, given a tree tilt by the infallible Pope this morning?
Then came another image of kit designed to promote bromancer yearning with a sorrowful sigh, Armament formations pass during the military parade. Picture: Guo Yu/Xinhua via AP
Sure enough, the bromancer was dazzled...
There was the characteristic dictator’s love of the gargantuan, something characteristically Orwellian and totalitarian. The subtext is to overwhelm the human spirit, to crush any sense of individual agency.
It was also a success militarily. It was the biggest military parade Beijing has ever staged, perhaps the biggest military parade in peace time the world has seen. The range of weapons was dazzling – unmanned systems, drones, tanks, fighting vehicles, fifth-generation, hi-tech fighter aircraft. And all in massive quantity. The Beijing regime has always been devoted to the insights of Joseph Stalin, none more so perhaps than his observation that in the competition between quality and quantity, quantity has a quality all of its own. But above all, perhaps, missiles – the missiles Beijing would launch against American ships in the event of conflict over Taiwan, the missiles it would use to terrorise Taiwanese cities, or to hit targets in northern Australia.
As a result of this massive military display, Xi could afford to be relatively restrained in his rhetoric. The world had to choose between war and peace, order and disorder, co-operation and conflict, he said.
The reptiles then called a time out so that Danica could berate comrade Dan, Sky News host Danica De Giorgio says former Victorian premier Dan Andrews’ visit to China as a guest of honour for their military parade was an “utter embarrassment to Australia”. “Even out of office, Dan Andrews remains China’s marionette,” Ms De Giorgio said. “Today, the true extent of his love affair with the communist dictatorship was laid out for the world to see, and it is very concerning. “Dan Andrews, hang your head in shame.”
Wanting to pander to the hive mind, the pond decided to slip in the immortal Rowe of the day ...
The bro's war with China (by Xmas at the latest) seemed to be slipping away ...
But in contrast to Trump, Xi implies, at least Beijing can offer stability.
Perhaps the parade’s biggest success of all for Beijing was political. Xi could cosy up with his fellow dictators, Putin, Xi and Mahmoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran (though he is not, personally, a dictator in Iran). But also, there was the Prime Minister of South Korea, Kim Min-seok, there was Prabowo Subianto, President of Indonesia,
There came a final intimidating snap, from the far righ:t (the pond doesn't invent the typos, just faithfully reproduces them), From left:t Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Wednesday. Picture: Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, via AP
The bromancer was in abject despair, but couldn't abandon King Donald in his hour of need. By no means was any of this King Donald's fault ...
Modi, sensibly, didn’t stay around for the military parade. It would certainly be a mistake to think that Modi, or even most of the others who did attend the military parade, are now completely aligned with Beijing.
But this is a powerful moment of vindication for Beijing. That might be an unpleasant reflection, but it’s best to deal with reality.
The SCO summit and the Beijing parade represent, among other things, a pretty definitive failure of the US, and the West generally, to convince the global south, especially Southeast Asia and India, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine needs to be met with global condemnation and united action.
It also makes very feeble any serious protest at the dedicated support of Russian aggression by its key allies, the PRC, North Korea and Iran.
This is by no means all Donald Trump’s fault. But just as it must be seen as a monumental success for Xi, so it must also be seen as a monumental failure of the chaos and disregard for allies and for democratic values displayed by Trump.
In many ways this was Xi’s Ozymandias moment: “Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”
On the other hand, Ozymandias didn’t end that well.
How exceedingly kind ...
This is by no means all Donald Trump’s fault.
How richly, bizarrely comic, as only the bromancer's comedy stylings can manage ...
...for democratic values displayed by Trump.
Oh indeed, indeed ... what a remarkable display, and as for Ozymandias not ending well ...
Those lines about it not being King Donald's fault, and displaying astonishing democratic values, was all the pond needed to head over to The Atlantic to note Alexandra Petri's offering, Apologies: You Have Reached the End of Your Free-Trial Period of America!, Want rule of law? That’s premium. (*archive link).
If all that's left is the human comedy, best to have a laugh.
As it's in the archive, the pond only felt the need for a teaser celebrating the offer:
We understand that over the past 250-odd years, you have come to rely on the services provided by the U.S. of A.: postal delivery, representative government, edible food, clean water, lifesaving vaccines, and no kings—ever, guaranteed. Well, 250 years of free is enough. Now we demand $TRUMP coin.
Was America perfect before? Hell, no! Some of these features arrived pretty late for some of you, and for that, we used to be sorry.
We were so excited to reach 340 million free users. But now it’s time to streamline our product so that it appeals more to paid subscribers, and that means some changes for everyone else. We are adding a lot of features no one asked for that will make your experience worse and also cost a lot of money! Freedom isn’t free! Nor is it, exactly, the freedom you’ve been used to! Yes, that is the National Guard in your city. We know that you didn’t request it; it’s just a new feature we’re rolling out, possibly for 30 days, possibly for even longer!
You were pretty vocal about what attracted you to America in the first place: personal liberty, economic opportunity, something called the American dream, and, of course, the perennial threat of gun violence. (That last feature developed over time, but it seems that our users are pretty attached? We offered you many opportunities to opt out.) But we knew what was really keeping you here: inertia, and the challenge of finding an alternative that sells decent breakfast burritos. We are banking on that going forward.
We hope the difficulty of switching to another provider will keep you here while we slowly remove all the features that you came for and replace them with AI-generated slop. We are also changing a lot of our graphic design to extract any remaining soul from our product. (We saw how well that went for Cracker Barrel!) This comes with branding updates too! Instead of a Nice, Friendly Place Where You Can Work Hard and Have a Better Life, we’re now That Place With More Than 60,000 People Currently in ICE Detention. Sydney Sweeney’s jeans are running the Department of Homeland Security.
Don’t worry. Our new CEO does hate a large portion of our current user base, but he’s not totally ignorant of the culture here. He is very excited to bring back some things that past users described as “great,” such as Depression, Recession, and White-Shark Attacks. It was also his brilliant idea to add the features of autocracy—State Control of Business, General Encouragement of Groveling, Masked Men Who Yank Your Neighbors Into an Unmarked Van to Whisk Them Off to a Gulag—to our core democratic product.
You heard it right: The government you knew for Weather Data and Medical Research is going all in on Despot Whims. This costs money, so bedrock features such as Separation of Powers, No Troop Quartering, and Due Process are being phased out, even for premium subscribers. We are also getting rid of most of our Health and Science. But you can have a career in ICE.
And so on, and so it goes, and the pond rushed off to subscribe to the update, but not before offering this day's Groaning as a genuinely Yowzah bonus ...
The header: Road to net zero reaches one missed deadline after another, Contrary to what the Prime Minister declares, a higher penetration of renewable energy will lead to higher prices.
The caption for yet another meaningless snap, offered in lieu of AI slop, Origin Energy’s Eraring coal station in NSW Hunter Valley. Picture: Supplied / Origin Energy
No doubt there are some who will find Dame Groan dreary and repetitious, but the pond's readership includes some devoted to the cult of the groaning ...and so they like to recite along, in the manner of the Latin mass, with a prompt followed by a response.
Dame Groan: Caeli scientia ...
The congregation: ... est religio
Domina vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo ...
Recall here that one of the obligations of being a signatory to the Paris climate agreement is the declaration of a Nationally Determined Contribution every five years. Each NDC must be more ambitious that the previous one.
The present NDC requires that our emissions will be 43 per cent below the 2005 figure by 2030. We are sitting at a reduction of 28 per cent, which was overwhelmingly because of the early inclusion of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry.
According to the most recent figures, emissions fell by a mere 1.3 per cent in the year ending in the March quarter 2025. Emissions have essentially been flat since the Albanese government was elected in 2022. This is notwithstanding some frenetic policymaking as well as the expenditure of billions of dollars; in particular, to subsidise renewable energy.
One of the joys of the current reptile campaign is the way that the reptiles have rejoined the Canavan caravan, and hang on his every word, just like the Bolter in this AV distraction, Nationals Senator Matt Canavan claims the Labor Party needs to be an “adult” about their climate policy and to stop “treating Australian people like mugs”. “People will generally support something they think is good when it is presented to them as something that is good for the world,” Mr Canavan told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “The majority of Australians are willing to pay $2 a week … to reach this mythical target of net zero emissions. “People here in Canberra have been hoodwinked into believing that somehow, we must do climate action because it's something people say they want. “In the real world, people understand there are trade-offs.”
Nice try, but the pond won't be distracted from the groaning ...
But it’s a sure bet that the life of Eraring in NSW will be extended into the next decade; ditto Loy Yang A in Victoria. The anticipated rollout of new electric vehicles is way behind schedule. There has also been little progress in reducing emissions in agriculture.
But here’s the thing: notwithstanding the high probability the 2030 target won’t be met – and let’s not forget that this target is legislated – both climate activists and self-interested businesses are campaigning for a ridiculously high target for 2035, of 75 per cent relative to 2005. While this target may seem absurd, fervent beliefs can be a powerful force, even if these beliefs are essentially baseless.
Take a recently released report designed to support the case for an emissions reduction target of 75 per cent. We are being told that 350 businesses back this target, including Atlassian, Ikea, Canva and Fortescue. Note here that only iron ore producer Fortescue is a significant emitter of carbon dioxide. According to its most recent results, the emissions from the company’s operations increased by more than 10 per cent last financial year.
Inevitably those infernal whale-killing machines score a mention, John Horan president of the No more wind farms upper Lachlan Shire and member of the group Natasha McCormack on a Roslyn farm which is surrounded by stage 2 and 3 of the Crookwell Wind Farm. Picture: Jonathan Ng
The pond almost bumped into a dead whale outside Goulburn the other day, and wondered why the beefy boofhead from down Bobingah way wasn't keeping the Hume highway clean (on second thoughts, it might have been a dead wombat, but whatever, it was those damned wind machines, driving the creatures crazy and sending them pell-mell into passing cars).
Inspired, Dame Groan carried on with her pitch ...
In addition, there would then be an additional 69,000 jobs – trivial given the number of employed is almost 15 million. We are also told that export revenues would increase by $190bn by 2050 in total, which is a rounding error. Iron ore, coal and LNG today generate almost $250bn in export income annually.
Of course, readers of this newspaper are very aware of the limitations of modelling – it is a case of assumptions driving the results: garbage in, garbage out. We are told the model results are a comparison with “business as usual” and that “setting a lower target comes at the cost of lower business investment than would otherwise be the case”.
If this sounds unconvincing, it’s because it is. We are most unlikely to reach our 2030 target, with the percentage of renewable energy falling well short of the target of 82 per cent. The slow rollout of wind and solar installations and the delay to increasingly costly transmission connections underpin this prediction. The fact that offshore wind is dead in the water – excuse the pun – means there will be no projects in that category that come on stream by 2035, let alone 2030.
But having failed to achieve the 2030 target, we are expected to believe that a massively higher target for 2035 is both feasible and economically sensible. Even Professor Frank Jotzo, who is consulted by the Albanese government on climate matters, is dubious about such a large target, even if it is stated as a range.
“Anything significantly stronger than 50 per cent will need dedicated and significant policy effort … The more ambitious is the target, the more vulnerable it is to being dismissed and not even worth trying for.” According to Jotzo, a target of 75 per cent would require massive progress in hard-to-abate sectors, including transport, agriculture and industrial plants.
Land-based carbon farming would have to be part of the mix, which is likely to be resisted by regional communities already hit hard by the intrusion of renewable energy installations and transmission lines.
Of course, politics has a nasty habit of getting in the way of sensible decision-making, particularly with climate matters. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is very keen to see the 2026 Conference of Parties climate conference take place in Australia and the Pacific. A high domestic emissions reduction target for 2035 could help his case. However, the wife of Turkey’s President is vigorously lobbying for her country to host the annual event.
There is also the backdrop of the debate about the Coalition’s commitment to net zero 2050, a position that was lobbed on the Coalition government by prime minister Scott Morrison in 2021.
Oh dear, the pond thought it had got rid of petulant Peta, but he she is again, and keeping Tamworth's eternal shame company, Sky News host Peta Credlin discusses how the Coalition is divided over net zero. “It is really ramping up internally,” Ms Credlin said. “That’s of course net zero … Barnaby Joyce out there of course pushing hard his private member’s bill.”
Then came the killer line ...
Given that net zero 2050 is essentially a religious belief...
Of course, of course, please bow your heads ...
Dame Groan: Caeli scientia ...
The congregation: ... est religio
Domina vobiscum, et cum spiritu tuo ...
And with that it was time for the final groan by the still agile Dame Groan, with that thought in context if you please...
The facts are that the electricity market, at least on the east coast, is no longer a market in any real sense of the word. Every single renewable energy project is going ahead, albeit at a snail’s pace, because it is being underwritten by the government.
The costs of these installations, as well as the necessary transmission lines to connect them to the grid, have been escalating. The wholesale price of electricity is rising and is likely to increase even further as the guaranteed returns to the regulated assets in the system flow through to higher retail and industrial prices. Gas will remain the marginal supplier, and its costs are also likely to rise.
Contrary to what the Prime Minister declares, a higher penetration of renewable energy will lead to higher prices, which will significantly crimp economic growth. We are seeing this already. (One wonders what assumption on energy prices was used in the hopelessly optimistic modelling cited above.)
But with 60 per cent of the world’s emissions not covered by a commitment to net zero 2050, it is time we had a realistic debate about where we are heading, rather than be led by the nose by fanciful modelling and impractical, ideologically driven policies.
Hang on, hang on, the pond thought they were impractical, theologically driven policies...
After all ...Given that net zero 2050 is essentially a religious belief...
Now they've suddenly become ideologically driven? As in ...
Given that net zero 2050 is essentially an ideologically filthy commie pinko prevert driven belief...
The pond should have been quoting from Mao's little red book rather than from the Latin mass?
Sheesh, it's really hard to keep up with these rabid reptiles, driven by a Freudian fear of renewables ...
Somebody put Dame Groan on a couch, and probe her deepest fears.
Oh and sorry Wilcox, any talk of genocide at the dinner table is most impolite, and might well see you sent to your room without anything to eat (just try going without food for months on end and see how you feel)...
Over in the lizard Oz there's no red line, no red line in the lizard Oz...
Before anyone asks, the pond was aware of Simon Tisdall in the Graudian ...
ReplyDeleteTrump’s belligerence is pushing Xi, Putin and Kim together – and tearing the old world order apart
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/03/donald-trump-xi-jinping-vladimir-putin-us-world-order
Inter alia ...
Donald Trump’s first reaction to the disconcerting spectacle of China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un marching side-by-side at a huge military parade in Beijing was, predictably, all about him. This show of solidarity and strength, he complained, was nothing less than an attempt to “conspire” against the United States. Trump likes military parades – his own, that is. Even more, he likes to be on the podium, at the centre of attention. He casts himself as world number one. The images coming out of the Chinese capital this week challenged him on all three counts.
This puncturing of Trump’s insecure ego, and the striking feebleness of his response, will greatly gratify Xi. Trump’s behaviour towards China since taking office in January has been aggressive, vindictive and patronising by turns. His punitive trade tariffs, in particular, have caused unprecedented disruption. Though the worst of the levies are paused until November, they help explain Xi’s repeated insistence China is a proud nation that will not be bullied. At the same time, Trump has talked vaguely about offering a face-to-face summit, as if bestowing a great gift. Parading the Beijing triumvirate was Xi’s pointed riposte.
...Little wonder Trump was put out. Yet who would seriously disagree that it is his foolish, provocative antagonising of friends and foes alike with his refurbished, multifaceted brand of neo-imperial US overreach that has induced so many countries to throw in their lot with China?
...Looking at Xi, Putin and Kim, plus the isolationist-nihilist Trump, biblical scholars might be forgiven for recalling the four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine and death.
And so on, and while Tisdall knocked the autocrats, all the pond could think was poor bloody Ukraine ...
Sadly, the pond is for reptiles on parade, and other insights must be left in the comments section...
Compelling insights indeed, but I do wonder what China is intending to do with all those tanks and other armed fighting vehicles considering that with the possible exception of India, China doesn't have much in the way of land borders with Non Chinese nations.
DeleteDon't think they could swim all the way to the USA, or even to Australia. Might be able to swim to Taipei, though.