In which only "Ned" survives the pond's culling...

 

The pond wondered if the reptiles would bother to note the latest Taliban depravity - perhaps turn a tragedy into a joke and suggest we could export Malware and Optus to help them with their communications strategies...

But it was nowhere to be seen, at the top (or anywhere below) ...

And so the one small chance of the pond and the hive mind agreeing on something - the tragedy of Afghanistan under the Taliban - went missing...

Instead the reptiles ticked a number of typical boxes today ...

Fear of furriners

EXCLUSIVE
Revealed: the elite uni degrees dominated by foreign students
As international student numbers surge, new data shows which degrees locals avoid at top unis, while foreign students dominate IT and business degrees. SEE THE LIST of who studies what
By Natasha Bita

Nah, but it does seem an odd name for someone peddling fear of furriners...

And there was the usual fear of renewables, dressed up with a greenie tinge...

EXCLUSIVE
‘More rooftop solar, fewer new big renewable plants’, says Christine Milne, amid legal threat to Robbins Island Wind Farm
Former Greens leader Christine Milne says the nation’s $1.3 trillion renewables rollout is a ‘developer-led mess’ – and there is a cheaper, less damaging alternative.
By Matthew Denholm

Of course the reptiles were wildly excited by King Donald's peace plan, with Tony Bleagh somehow worming his way into the story, as if he hadn't already done enough helping Iraq ...

Be afraid, be very afraid ...

MIDDLE EAST
Peace Inc: Trump’s audacious Gaza start-up
Washington’s ‘comprehensive’ peace plan to end the Gaza conflict has earned widespread support with Hamas facing a stark choice to either surrender or face annihilation.
By Joe Kelly and Ben Packham

The archive header offered a slightly softer touch than total, apocalyptic, annihilation ...

Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan in full, Washington’s ‘comprehensive’ peace plan to end the Gaza conflict calls for the territory to be deradicalised and redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.

Luckily they put scare quotes around 'comprehensive' as an escape clause, because we know what "redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza" means, a sure fire way for settlers to do a West Bank, what with him, Donald J. Trump, chairman of the bored...

The usual suspect was there to cheer it on, but sounded a tad cautious ...

Brilliant plan, but hard days ahead
Trump's new Gaza peace plan offers hope of ending the conflict, isolating Hamas while giving Netanyahu a path to withdraw and Palestinians a chance for reconstruction.
By Greg Sheridan

In an understatement of the year, the bromancer suggested Another problem might be Trump’s short attention span.

Well there is the war on Portland to pursue, not to mention the war on all the enemies within ... but why such saucy doubts and fears about what even the proponents dubbed a framework for a plan? (A big like that pitch for a concept for an outline for a proposed script).

Didn't King Donald sort out Vlad the Impaler in his first day in office?

Over on the right, there was more of the usual suspects ...

Alex urged on support of Benji fundamentalism...

Labor now has to pressure Palestinians and Hamas
Australia has shown a willingness to punish Israel in a great number of ways. What will it do to ensure the Palestinians uphold their side of the peace plan bargain?
By Alex Ryvchin
Comment

Don't ask the pond to explain that "comment" credit, but the archived header gave the game away ...

Trump has given us a peace plan. What is Palestine-recognising Labor going to do make it reality? Australia has shown a willingness to punish Israel in a great number of ways. What will it do to ensure the Palestinians uphold their side of the peace plan bargain?

As did one line explaining where Alex was coming from ...

Alex Ryvchin is the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry

He was also in the total annihilation camp...

If this is revealed to be so, the total destruction of Hamas will be the only option.

That's a shorthand way of saying the total destruction of the Palestinian people is a reasonable option. Always blathering on about persecuted Israel and never mind the ongoing killing and the wanton destruction.

What else?

Well the pond has been hitting the reptile books pretty hard over the past few days, so it was easy to send some reptiles to the archival cornfields, where correspondents could take or leave them. (Apologies if the archive drops out, it's a fallible resource, but it usually bounces back)

The pond could certainly leave Dame Slap, with any correspondent who made the trek able to share the experience in the comments section ...

Forget the building corruption commission, we may need RICO laws
Just as the Fitzgerald report altered policing in Queensland, Queenslanders must hope the Wood inquiry will be a watershed for the state’s construction industry – and for the Labor Party.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

The pond decided it was too long an excursion simply so the pond could make a joke about a MAGA-hat wearer talking about RICO, when she could have been talking about how she could do it the easy or the hard way.

The pond could particularly leave this item...

A depraved man in a women’s jail – how does this happen?
This isn’t just a miscarriage of justice, it’s a deliberate betrayal of every woman and girl in this country, enabled by a political class too spineless or ideologically blinded to act.
By Sall Grover

The reptiles had another go at it in the "news" section ... with this aside ...

Maloney’s lawyer, Isabelle Skaburskis, told The Age newspaper her client had been in solitary confinement for 13 months, which she described as “a form of torture under international law”.

Solitary for 13 months, and they're still squawking?

All that only left "Ned" standing ... and with a deep sigh of regret, the pond knew its duty and embarked on the "Ned" Everest climb, though it wasn't so bad, only a five minute outing to reach the peak, so the reptiles said, though in the pond's experience with "Ned", a minute can feel like a day, or an eternity ...

The header: PM’s progressive experiment hits world of power, This overseas visit highlights the contradiction Albanese faces – he markets the rituals of the left while being locked into the power realities of the right.

The caption for an exceedingly dull image: Anthony Albanese addresses delegates during the Labour Party conference at ACC Liverpool.

The pond almost fell into a deep sleep from the get go ...

His election victory has turned Anthony Albanese into a significant leader, both at home and in the global challenge facing centre-left progressivism. His recent trip testifies to Albanese’s exacting journey – to determine whether progressivism can withstand the populist right global surge.
Australia has become an experimental laboratory, a global test case. Labor now has a golden six-year opportunity to either prove progressivism’s resilience or see it break and buckle as Starmer Labour seems to be doing in Britain.
This overseas visit highlights the contradiction Albanese faces – he markets the rituals of the left while being locked into the power realities of the right.
But playing both sides of politics is now close to being unmanageable: the fading utopianism of the left from identity politics to climate action to huge social spending to scepticism about sovereignty now confronts rising demands from the right prioritising national cohesion, more muscular policies, security in a more dangerous world and a resurrection of patriotism.
Albanese is a progressive but he’s not a radical. He has become an incrementalist with a respect for institutions and a cautious approach to change. He seeks to govern for the long term and that means shifting Australia, by consent, to the left, gradually turning Australia into a progressive nation in its policies and values. The conservatives who just abuse him are lining up for another loss.
The Indigenous voice is gone, but Albanese now sells his progressivism on ambitious climate action, Palestinian recognition, cultivation of the migrant and Islamic vote, a Labor faith in public spending and state power, and his gospel “no one held back, no one left behind” – a slogan designed for its inclusive pitch.

It goes without saying that the reptiles (and "Ned") are all for exclusion, veritable Pete Hegseths, though the pond sometimes wonders why people with an enormous number of tats aren't considered as dangerous as beard wearers.

Never mind, back to "Ned's" form of selective persecution, with these targets ... Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese attend the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

Yes, we've been here before, because the reptiles have gone the get 'em coming and get 'em going route, with the reptiles raging at the way chairman Albo didn't seem to want to travel or meet King Donald, and then raging that he dared to head off to meet some bloody Pom who seemed to think little England might be somewhere to be found in that AUKUS acronym ...

He cuts his progressivism to suit local realities. Albanese is adept at sorting progressive causes into the strong, the forlorn and the evolving. The republic is forlorn. He won’t waste time on it and now gives up any pretence. He signalled on the ABC’s Insiders there will be no referendum on the republic. Meanwhile, he likes and respects King Charles, thinks the Australian model of our Governor-Generalite is just fine while his pick for the office, Sam Mostyn, is doing a “fantastic” job. It’s all the way with the King.
Albanese is strong on border security. John Howard’s border security policies are more vital than ever, given how illegal arrivals have empowered Donald Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in Britain. Albanese said he kept the Abbott-Morrison Operation Sovereign Borders, keen to quarantine his government from the illegal entries that have convulsed the left in the US and Britain. He has recently coined the phrase progressive patriotism. That’s neat, it captures the evolving mood, but what’s it mean?
He’s not for turning on nuclear power. Australian progressivism is still anti-nuclear. Albanese’s big commitment is on renewables and his ambitious 2035 targets of 62-70 per cent, probably unachievable, are likely to see escalating power prices and uncompetitive industry.
In New York Albanese paraded his progressivism at the UN General Assembly, hailing clean energy as the world’s nirvana but receiving a less than ecstatic response. Every ritual was honoured: faith in the UN, aspiring to Security Council election in 2029-30 and seeking to co-host the 31st Conference of the Parties on climate change.
But the progressive media and the left want more – talking up a more “independent” policy from the America of the loathed Trump where “independent” really means more distance from the US, such language being generations old and just as stale.
There is no grand framing for Albanese’s foreign policy, just a collection of relationships that sends different messages to different parts of the world, from Washington to Beijing to London, deploying multiple guises. He likes to function in the Labor tradition and echoes Kevin Rudd saying his foreign policy has three pillars – the alliance with the US, Asian and regional engagement, and a multilateral world view. The problem is that reconciling these pillars is far tougher today than when Kevin ran the orchestra.

This was the snap that particularly seemed to irk the reptiles, Anthony Albanese takes a selfie with US President Donald Trump at the United Nations in New York.

On and on "Ned" went with his furious fulminations ...

Albanese’s enduring belief is that Australia “punches above its weight”, the ultimate and long-exhausted cliche. He doesn’t like shocks – his obsession is about being calm, considered and consistent. Since re-election he is far more confident that his diplomatic juggling performance with China and America won’t fall apart.
Albanese rates his ability to “get on” with leaders – from Keir Starmer to Emmanuel Macron to Papua New Guinea’s James Marape to Trump. Ahead of their October 20 meeting, Albanese says he likes Trump and their dealings so far have been only positive. Yet his meeting with Trump will be pivotal – Albanese needs an imprimatur at presidential level confirming him as a valued security partner of the US and giving Trump’s explicit backing of the AUKUS agreement.
Nothing else will suffice. Albanese and his deputy, Richard Marles, are supremely confident – the signs are the US review of AUKUS will back the agreement. But will there be conditions? If Trump delivers, most of the year-long attacks on Albanese’s inability to get the meeting with Trump will fade away, to be replaced by the new Trump-Albanese narrative.
It will be linked to an Albanese vindication against his conservative political and media critics, who will be cast as making the wrong call for most of the year.
But the potential for trouble exists: there are sharp Trump-Albanese differences on defence spending, climate policy, the energy transition, Palestine, trade, core values and potentially on China strategy. Albanese is a left progressive; Trump is a “Make America Great Again” right populist. They represent the greatest political chasm between US and Australian leaders since the creation of the alliance.
The alliance is beset by a conundrum. Can both nations get on the same page with AUKUS? This demands the Trump administration sorting where it stands on AUKUS and it demands Albanese convincing the Americans that Labor is prepared to make the huge financial and operational commitments required – by 2027 the facilities near Perth must house and sustain visits from US and British nuclear-powered subs.

Then came the two chairmen together, Anthony Albanese and Kevin Rudd attend a Technology and Innovation Business reception in Seattle, Washington.

Then it was on to the final gobbet of "Ned"s rant ...

The purpose of AUKUS – deepening defence deterrence against China by being willing to project military power in the region – has little popularity within the Labor Party. The question becomes: can Labor’s progressivism tolerate the greater US-Australian military ties that bind this agreement?

(As an aside, it would seem that actually visiting one of the AUKUS partners has little popularity within the hive mind).

AUKUS is the ultimate test of the pragmatism of Albanese’s progressivism: witness teaming up with Trump and getting closer to US nuclear power. There is no doubt that Albanese champions the alliance and AUKUS. As a traditionalist who respects institutions, alliances and agreements, there is no other option. He can’t be a natural party of government without being a natural party of the alliance. At the same time he faces parallel problems with China. Albanese champions expanding economic ties with China and has ditched domestic criticism of China, yet Xi Jinping only intensifies his efforts to pursue regional dominance, exploit US weakness and outflank Australia in the Pacific. The China that Rudd dealt with as prime minister doesn’t exist any more.
While Albanese declares stabilisation of our ties with China, Xi has leapt far ahead, bringing seduction and pressure to bend Australia’s to China’s interests. Does Albanese possess the strategic mindset needed to manage and counter the relentless diplomacy he will face from Beijing? His efforts to forge security agreements with Vanuatu and PNG expose his miscalculations. It is compounded by another nightmare: can Albanese really trust Trump?
The policies and values radiated by progressives and demanded by the left are largely foreign to the hard power, geo-strategic challenges that will test Australia in coming years. When Albanese became PM he was a foreign policy amateur, now he is engaged in a daunting project – sorting how Labor progressivism fits into a world that has taken it by surprise.

Say what? "Ned" isn't surprised? 

"Ned" feels perfectly comfortably in this world? 

Really?

Just look at the tabloid headlines ...

Newsom Mocks Hegseth With a Perfect ‘Simpsons’ Reference
ME FAIL SPEECH?
The California governor hilariously trolled Hegseth’s ranting military address.

The pond doesn't mind Simpsons jokes, but this is what King Donald has reduced the level of political  discourse to?

Trump Delivers Bonkers N-Word Ramble to Military Chiefs
CLAP! AND THAT'S AN ORDER
The president darted through a series of random topics in a rant before U.S. generals.

Relax, it's a tired old, oft-repeated joke, with the King needing new jesters to help him with his jokes ...

“There are two N words, and you can’t use either of them,” Trump said as if thinking aloud to himself.

Trump’s Sinister Threat to ‘Take Out’ Enemies in U.S. Cities
RED ALERT
The president told an unprecedented meeting of military generals that America was facing an “invasion from within.”

Trump Tells Military Leaders The Enemy Is 'Within'
In a speech to U.S. generals and admirals, the president said the cracking down on “civil disturbances” would be a “big thing” for them.

Trump, Hegseth Host Multimillion-Dollar Meeting Of Top Staff That Could Have Been An Email

The defense secretary railed against fat service members and hot yoga, while the president delivered his usual rambling nonsense.

And again, per Politico ...‘Could have been an email’: Officials balk at Hegseth's generals meeting

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting.
Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all.
“More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution. “Could have been an email.”
Defense officials, in the Pentagon and at bases around the world, spent much of Tuesday trying to make sense of the last-minute gathering at the Quantico base in Virginia. Hegseth called out “fat generals,” and, separately, pushed fitness standards that could limit women in combat roles, while Trump offered his justification for sending the military into American cities.
The 90-minute event — which featured military officials who swore an oath to the Constitution attending something more akin to a campaign rally — had the feeling of a Hollywood production. Trump even instructed officials to “just have a good time.”
The meeting took place hours before a likely government shutdown, and struck some officials as a distraction that threatens to shift the military’s focus away from foreign threats toward an unprecedented domestic role.
“Not quite a loyalty test, but … on the spectrum of loyalty to ideology,” said a second defense official. “Total waste of money.”

Deeply weird times, all they needed was Caligula's horse.

And then there's the shutdown looming ..

A Government Shutdown Is Looming So Hard Right Now, Negotiations have completely fallen apart with hours left on the clock.

Everything a last minute Tennessee Williams outing, with oodles of melodrama, and then there's the brain rot and the tariffs...

Trump’s AI Brain Rot, Plus: Trump’s increasingly dumb, and undoubtedly painful, global tariff loop.

Not to mention that court case ...

Trump’s Own Words Have Discredited the Case Against Comey, The evidence that the president directed a vindictive prosecution is overwhelming.

Oh and there's the singing ...

Moscow Can’t Stop the Music, The Kremlin is trying to suppress songs that defy Putin’s rule. It isn’t working.

On a recent summer night, hundreds of young Russians assembled on St. Petersburg’s main street to hear songs that the government had banned. It was the latest gathering of the country’s musical underground, and anger at the Kremlin was on full, and loud, display.
A rock group named Stoptime played recent anti-war songs as well as an old anthem—originally by the Soviet-era band Kino—that has become a symbol of political resistance. “Changes! Our hearts demand changes,” the vocalist sang. “Changes! Our eyes demand changes!” A few bikers paused their deliveries to join the chorus.
Stoptime and many of its underground peers perform out in the open despite the threat of prison. Last month, the group played a song by the rapper Noize MC that imagines Russia’s future after President Vladimir Putin: “Somebody good will come to power. He will fix everything, unexpectedly; he will punish the bastards, nobody will get away.” A few days later, police detained members of the group. They were released and back performing again soon after.
Street concerts and underground gatherings offer a rare hint of hope for the many young Russians who have grown disheartened by Moscow’s prolonged war and deepening repression. Musicians have become influential activists and symbols of political resistance, just as they were in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has repeatedly tried to suppress the music scene and punish its leaders, a sign that Putin seems to understand the danger they pose. But despite the persecutions, the underground is showing no sign of being silenced. In fact, it’s growing.

Go rebels, sing a rebel song, bring old Putin down ...

Oh for techno types, echoes of the Taliban in The New Yorker...

Tim Berners-Lee Invented the World Wide Web. Now He Wants to Save It, In 1989, Sir Tim revolutionized the online world. Today, in the era of misinformation, addictive algorithms, and extractive monopolies, he thinks he can do it again.

But can he remove the many weevils that make the Taliban suffer so?

To be fair, all that is vastly more entertaining and droll than reading "Ned" or the rest of the lizard Oz reptiles ...

... except perhaps if you live in certain parts of the disunited States, Ukraine or Gaza ... 

... though there are any number of cartoonists lining up to help with the peace proposal ...

And that's a  pretty fair rendering ...

Take a squiz at the detail in the plan ...

Oh and a bonus, a good Hydeing ...

It’s the art of the dodgy deal, Middle East edition: author Donald Trump, updated by Jared Kushner

Any dramatist seeking a character through whom to distil the sold-out madness of the present times could do a lot worse than President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Yesterday exposed Jared’s starring role in not one but two current deals. 1. History’s biggest-ever leveraged buyout, of video game giant Electronic Arts (EA), which Kushner’s firm is taking private and effectively into Saudi ownership. And 2. “Eternal peace in the Middle East”, as per what has been widely referred to as “the Kushner-Blair plan” for Gaza. Busy week for Jared! He’s popping up at so many seismic moments – just call him Forrest Trump.

Quick refresher on our boy: he is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and previously served as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s first administration, taking the opportunity of Trump’s election loss/unfortunate insurrection-fostering to seemingly leave frontline politics and start his own investment firm. And contrary to popular conjecture that he would be a pariah after that period, Jared sails unstoppably on. These days his appearance is so coolly detached and rarefied that he looks more like a drawing of Jared Kushner, or maybe like the cyborg you’d build to covertly replace Jared Kushner after the real one was plagued by conscience glitches.

And so: Jared’s manic Monday. It feels like we should address his now-activated plan for ending the horrendous war on Gaza first, before we do the gaming mega-deal. Unfortunately, the timeline of the Kushner calendar had things in a different order. It was video games/Saudi laundering first, then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming over to the White House later to explain how incredibly keen he was to sign up to a plan to stop doing the things he’s very remorselessly doing.

The morning saw the announcement that EA – who make huge franchises like EA FC (Fifa, to anyone who plays it) and Madden NFL – was being taken private in a $55bn deal brokered by Kushner, with the Saudi regime’s investment fund as the majority owner. Worried it might rub up against regulatory opposition? In the circumstances, please don’t be. As the FT put it: “People close to the discussions say Kushner’s involvement would also ease the deal’s path through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which adjudicates on deals involving foreign buyers.”

Why am I reminded of the guy in Goodfellas who brings the Air France heist to the gang and dismisses their concerns about security. “Security? You’re looking at it. It’s a joke. I’m the midnight-to-eight man.” Either way, it’s instructive to learn that some foreign ownership of firms with access to the data of US citizens is sometimes very good and very permitted. Sorry, TikTok! Maybe you guys should have found a way to make your existence worth the wider Trump family’s while. (And you know what? Maybe you still will …)

Not that that was the tack Jared went with for his statement on the deal, preferring instead to eulogise EA. “I’ve admired their ability to create iconic, lasting experiences,” he explained, “and as someone who grew up playing their games – and now enjoys them with his kids – I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”

What's ahead? The rest of the jolly good Hydeing ...