In which there's a little hot gospel to hand before the hole in bucket man makes his regular Friday appearance ...

 

It's always good to see the reptiles at the lizard Oz reduced to the childish name-calling level of the pond, and this day the gormless Garvey set the pace at the top of the "news" (the pond always uses the word loosely when referring to the lizard Oz)...

Luckily this EXCLUSIVE was in the archive ...

EXCLUSIVE
Disinformation, Chrisinformation: Now it’s missing information
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and his department have defied the Senate by refusing to release critical net zero advice despite orders to do so.
By Paul Garvey

What  with that wordplay available, the pond will simply note the usual, simplistic, childish demonising snap that led the way, the kind of image-making you'd expect from the most base of Murdochian tabloids, a kind of News of the World down under...

The reptiles always like to stack the odds, cook the books ... and even worse, that wretched obsession with Gough, almost as dire as their worshipping of Ming the Merciless, keeps burbling along, though these days it's just part of a relentless promotion of ancient Troy's latest tome ...

EXCLUSIVE
How Albanese is embracing Whitlam’s legacy while aiming to avoid his mistakes
Launching Troy Bramston’s book Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New on Friday, Anthony Albanese will reflect on how the anniversaries of the Whitlam government are intrinsically linked to his own.
By Geoff Chambers and Richard Ferguson

They needed two reptiles to conjure up an EXCLUSIVE book promo?

Over on the extreme far right, Killer Creighton made yet another appearance, while Garth continued the reptile net zero jihad ...

More of them anon, as Henry, hole in bucket man supreme, made his regular Friday appearance, and there was an odd appearance by a couple from the Philos Project.

The pond can't recall ever seeing representatives of this mob before in the lizard Oz, but the website, Philos Project | Christian Advocacy in the Middle East | Nonprofit, gives a clue: A community of Christian leaders who advocate for pluralism in the Middle East.

That immediately triggered raising of hairs on back of neck, but the pond is always up for anything when visiting the hive mind, especially when it offers a distraction from Our Henry..

The header for the four minute read: This is the age of the mega-influencer ... It will only get worse from here, We live in an era of digital populism, where the loudest voice, the sharpest aesthetic, the most charismatic personality and, tragically, the most convincing and creative misinformation wins.

The caption for the truly hideous collage, and please remember that the pond only transcribes: Ultimate Creator Challenge with Focal House Productions Belle Blahova , Curtis Walker and Kristen Sorrenson in front of the cameraÕs. Pics Adam Head

The pond always carries the sounds and sights of Burt Lancaster's Elmer Gantry in its head when this sort of blather hovers into view, especially when it begins with talk of an "epistemological crisis":

We are living in the late stages of an epistemological crisis. In our modern, AI-powered era, the very idea of truth – what it is, who has it, and how it’s accessed – has collapsed in on itself.
People no longer know what to believe, not necessarily because they are less intelligent or more cynical than past generations, but because the structures and institutions that used to help people make sense of the world are all but gone.
What remains is a kind of digital populism of the mind, where the loudest voice, the sharpest aesthetic, the most charismatic personality and, tragically, the most convincing and creative misinformation wins. This is the age of the mega-influencer. It will only get worse from here.
The mega-influencer is a new sort of figure. For years, major broadcasting networks would platform individuals we referred to as “pundits”. They would offer commentary on current events, even when most of them did not possess some real expertise over their subject matter.
We tuned in to them because we were glad that someone was caring about the issues we too cared about, or because they were quite adept at interviewing people we were interested in hearing from. Punditry, of course, was not a great way to learn about the world, for it outsourced thinking to someone else. But punditry was a staple of our media world, downstream from the “public intellectuals” of the latter half of the 20th century.
With pundits, though, there were limits. There were editorial boards, producers, a basic set of standards about tone and fact. The pundit could speculate and stretch, but they still generally operated within the gravitational pull of something we might call reality and objectivity. Not always, but often.

Well there's a category error there, right from the get go, as if the lizard Oz hive mind was a haven for something anyone might call reality and objectivity. Not always, just never...

The reptiles then interrupted with a purportedly witty visual distraction ... “How I realised AI was making me stupid.” Illustration by Jason Schneider.

Oh dear, best get back to the matter at hand, though to be fair, that image, fresh from an advertising manual, matched the level of insight the text offered ...

This is no longer the case. The mega-influencer owes nothing to a newsroom. They answer to no editorial standard and report to no institution, though many of them have nefarious, often foreign, backing. They are self-made and self-verified. They are the platform. And, unlike the pundit, the mega-influencer is not just offering commentary.
They’re offering gospel, an all-encompassing system of thought, a worldview that absorbs every fact, event or controversy, and spits out certainty. The mega-influencer acts as a god in this manner, declaring something into existence just by its mere utterance. There is a religious dimension to the rise of the mega-influencer.

Ah there you go, they managed to wangle "gospel" into the verbiage, together with "religious dimension", because members of one cult are always eager to call out other cults ...

Then came a splendid variation:

What we are witnessing is the triumph of postmodernism’s long campaign against objective truth. 

So much better than the usual reptile talk of the long march of the left through the institutions. 

Here, worship of transubstantiation can be transformed, into a trinitarian way, into the idle worship of "objective truth", miracles and resurrections included ...

Beginning in France in the latter half of the 20th century, postmodernism taught that grand narratives were tools of oppression, and claims to truth were veiled exercises in power. The line between authority and authoritarianism was blurred completely.
There can be no more history, just a variety of “histories” that are all worth equal weight. While the postmodern impulse was mainly a feature of the left, we’ve seen its embrace now on the right with the rise of the mega-influencer, who borrows its tools and language almost to a tee.
In that vacuum of ideas, people turn to loyalty. They pick their influencer like they would a team or a tribe or their preferred detergent and, from that point on, everything that comes out of that influencer’s mouth is taken as fact, insight or prophecy. No one asks about sources. No one tracks citations. The mega-influencer becomes the source. And when this happens at scale, with a little push from AI, we don’t just lose access to the truth; we lose the very idea that truth can be accessed at all.
In this world, ideas have scant value. Eric Hoffer, probably the greatest philosopher on the nature of mass movements, commented in his vitally important work, The True Believer: “The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the single-handed defiance of the world.” It is frightening how well that captures the nature of the mega-influencer.

Phew, what a relief, for a minute there, the pond thought the pair were going to break out into the usual Xian blather ...

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Instead the pond got Hoffered ...

It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.

At this point, the reptiles offered an AV distraction, but as it featured a fundamentalist Xian influencer, perhaps it was to be expected that the reptiles would want to spend quality time with Rita, meter maid, Pro-life Influencer Savannah Craven Antao discusses how political violence is on the rise amid the assassination of Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk. “It’s always a concern that each time I go out … if they see me out on the street, are they going to try to do something as well?” Ms Antao told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “I cannot be fearful … they turn to violence when they can’t step up to a microphone and have a conversation.”

There it was again, the bizarre notion that Kirk was offering a conversation rather than a cult...

And so on to the final stretch ...

This is a profound moral and spiritual problem. When people lose the ability to discern truth, they become susceptible not only to error but to evil. The mega-influencer may not wield institutional power, but they shape the public imagination. And in a world where narratives seem to matter more than facts, the imagination is where wars are won and lost. If we want a way out, we will have to do more than flag posts and videos. We’ll have to relearn the old ways: reading slowly and closely, checking sources, sitting with ambiguity. We’ll need to turn off X and open books. Most of all, we’ll need to remember that truth is not a vibe, not a trend, not something you “feel in your gut” because your favourite account said it. It is something to be sought, wrestled with, earned. Until that happens, the age of the mega-influencer will march on. With it, the confusion, the false prophets and the fraying of whatever common world we still share will continue.
And perhaps, in the long arc of things, that very confusion will be what drives people back to something that has deep roots. The endless novelty, the deception, the noise – eventually, it exhausts and torments the soul. Already, people are starting to look elsewhere: toward what is old, rooted, firm and proven.
There exists within man a craving for something that is not transient and ephemeral. It’s time to tune out the mega-influencer and tune back into the hallowed habits of thought that the digital age has eroded.

As for what exists within "woman"? 

Who cares, remember they're just a spare rib, a bit of useless bone ...

Discredit where discredit is due ...

Phillip Dolitsky is strategic adviser at The Philos Project. Luke Moon is executive director of The Philos Project. This article was first published in Engelsberg Ideas.

The pond has to confess a feeling of disappointment.

 Right there at the end there was a real opportunity for a bit of bible thumping, amid the talk of "hallowed habits of thought", but the pair fudged it. 

Oh there were plenty of hints, the talk of "false prophets", and the "torments of the soul", and "long arcs", possibly leading to the rapture, but in the end the pair were surprisingly timid in their feeble attempt to influence the hive mind ...

Still, it was a welcome distraction from the hole in the bucket man, offering one of his standard diatribes as an avoidance strategy...

The hysterical headline, crying freedumb, heralding a full five minutes in company with Our Henry: Violent pro-Palestine mob takes gutless leaders for a ride, Free societies are under no obligation to tolerate the intolerant – still less to accommodate the Islamists and the far left’s passion for violence.

The caption: Police are seen during an Anti Fascist protest in Melbourne. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Before embarking on the read, the pond would like to congratulate Our Henry for his most excellent ability to distrac.

Even the reptiles couldn't help but notice, with the couch-molester making the subject matter right, fitting and proper for the hive mind  ...

‘Very stupid’: JD Vance blasts Israeli politicians of West Bank annexation vote, JD Vance blasted as ‘very stupid’ Israel’s vote on legislation to annex the whole of the West Bank, as Washington warns it will jeopardise the Gaza peace plan

There's no end to the malevolence, and there's no end to Our Henry's ability to avoid such awkward activities...

Birmingham may be half a world from Melbourne but hatred knows no borders. Last week, faced with Islamist threats to incite a riot, the British city barred supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club from attending next month’s match – a move championed by independent MP Adnan Hussain, who declared that mere outrage was “not enough”.
In Melbourne, Victoria’s Free Palestine Coalition seemed intent on proving his point: its masked, keffiyeh-clad followers turned words into violence, attacking police who were simply protecting an entirely peaceful March for Australia.
That Islamists, who are responsible for 86 per cent of terrorism-related deaths in the West since 2000, glorify violence is no revelation. Nor is it news that the far left has long shared that appetite for destruction. From the Russian Zemlya i Volya (“Land and Liberty”) of the 1870s, which exalted “the dagger, the revolver, and dynamite” as “the revolutionist’s most effective means of persuasion”, to today’s Antifa mobs, the lineage is unbroken. Now, as Islamists and the far left converge, their methods are spilling ever more brazenly into Australian streets.
That contagion of rage reflects a deeper transformation. The far left has ceased to be a movement with an encompassing social project; it has become a loose federation of incompatible identity factions, united only by shared hatreds. Having no overarching vision of a better future, its members find common purpose in fury – using vitriol and protest as both the glue that holds their movement together and the fuel that drives its radicalisation, each confrontation testing how far the boundaries can be pushed.

The pond realises why our Henry is ranting so ...

And so on, as the reptiles dressed in the notion that being anti-fascist was somehow a problem, and perhaps when you consider the text output of not so young Republicans, perhaps it is ... Police are seen during an Anti Fascist protest in Melbourne. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

The reptiles could have stuck in a snap of actual fascists ...

Never gets old, but our Henry cleverly manages to avoid actual neo-Nazis ...what with him being exceptionally quick off the mark to sort out people on the simplistic basis of "friend of Israel" or "enemy of Israel" ...

At the same time, the intellectual tone of left-wing theory has hardened. The inexorable rise of “left Schmittianism” captures the shift. Inspired by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, who reduced politics to a fight to the death between “friend” and “enemy”, it treats annihilation not as politics’ greatest failure but as its apotheosis.
Today, with Schmitt’s leading left-wing heirs – Giorgio Agamben, Chantal Mouffe, and Slavoj Zizek – idolised in universities, a generation is being taught not argument but enmity.
It is not a long journey from that mindset to the killing of Charlie Kirk and the wave of leftist glee that followed. Whatever one thinks of Kirk’s views, his “prove me wrong” challenge embodied the spirit of rational contest. Whether or not he knew Aristotle’s peirastic dialectic – the disciplined testing of controversial propositions by examining their consistency with shared premises – he practised it instinctively.

Moving past the obligatory Aristotelian moment, has Our Henry got the Schmitt cart before the extreme far right horse?

The Nazi Jurist Who Haunts Our Broken Politics
A contempt for compromise. An expansive vision of executive power. Both owe much to Carl Schmitt.

Well yes, if you wanted a truly Schmittian regime, look to turd-tossing King Donald, the couch molester and their minions ... unless perhaps you looked at the current government of Israel, doing its best to disrupt ... per Haaretz ...

While at Haaretz, why not have a read of Gideon Levy? Just to see how they do it in the gulags ...

...or you can just stick with Our Henry's usual mumble jumble of philosopher word salads...

Yet as Sperone Speroni (the Renaissance humanist who rekindled Aristotelian debate) warned, the peirastic dialogue depends on there being premises both participants can endorse. Once that common ground disappears, persuasion – in which “although the sought truth will not spring out openly and entirely, we shall inevitably witness some of its sparks, because truth by its nature always shines” – all too easily gives way to coercion.
The great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber drew a related lesson: as they stare into each other’s eyes, genuine, face-to-face dialogue forces the participants to recognise their shared humanity. It is precisely that recognition today’s extremists resist.
Like their Islamist allies, the radicals who dehumanise opponents shun dialogue because it drains the hatred that sustains their politics – and, echoing Lenin’s contempt for “reactionaries”, they believe that “There is only one answer to reaction: smash its face in!”.
The question is why we let them get away with it. There is, they contend, an inalienable “right to protest”. But no such right exists. What the law protects is the right of peaceful assembly – a right that, since its initial development in the 19th century, has always been subject to stringent limits designed to prevent disorder and safeguard the public.

Inevitably the reptiles flung in a snap of a truly terrifying radical, one who has reduced Melbourne to fourth spot in the world's most liveable cities, Premier Jacinta Allan speaks at a press conference at Joan Kirner Womens Hospital. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Our Henry continued on his referential way ...

So when the Free Palestine Coalition claims that “police denied thousands the right to protest”, what it is really seeking is the right to deny the rights of others, suppressing their freedoms of peaceful assembly, association and expression. Since October 7, that has been the method of Islamists and their leftist fellow travellers: threats, intimidation and disruption deployed not to defend liberty but to extinguish it.
Yet a free society is under no obligation to tolerate the intolerant, still less to bow to their ultimatums. The purpose, and primary justification, of the rights of assembly, association and expression is to sustain constitutional democracy and the pursuit of truth. Menaces and hate-fuelled campaigns only undermine that purpose; violence destroys it.
That is why John Rawls – perhaps the most influential political philosopher of the 20th century – argued in his canonical A Theory of Justice (1971) that “an intolerant sect has no title to complain” when it is denied a liberty it would deny to others. To indulge such bad-faith claims is not an act of fairness but of surrender, aiding the very project that seeks to dismantle the freedoms others may rightly expect and demand.
Repeated often enough, those acts of surrender amount to what US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson – no one’s idea of a reactionary – described in Terminiello v City of Chicago (1949) as “a formula for converting constitutional rights into a suicide pact”.
That danger is no abstraction: it is exactly what we are witnessing. From conferences and conventions to universities and cultural institutions, the leftists are imposing their views and defining the scope of allowed freedoms. For instance, without having the honesty to admit it publicly, Curtin University has resiled from an exchange agreement with a leading Israeli institution after its student union threatened to shut the campus down.

Then came a final snap, Police Commander Wayne Cheesman

And so yet again, Our Henry managed to avoid the thugs being given free rein ...

Blessed are the cheesemakers, because there's not many peacemakers to be found... but how clever of the hole in the bucket man to once again avoid all that disgraceful carry-on ...

Even more shamefully, governments are giving the thugs free rein. Following Sunday’s riot, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan promised legislation empowering police to “deal with people who are cloaking themselves under masks to perform violent acts under the cloak of a protest”.
What she failed to mention is that Victoria’s Unlawful Assemblies and Processions Act 1958 already grants sweeping powers to control rallies, remove masked participants from designated areas, seize potential weapons, and ban the display of “any banner, emblem, flag or symbol calculated to provoke animosity between subjects of different religious persuasions”.
The problem is not a lack of authority but of will: a government quick to crush anti-lockdown protests now shrinks from confronting Islamists and leftists, no matter how dangerous they become.
As for the Albanese government, it has done nothing to deter publicly funded institutions from capitulating to leftist coercion. Displaying cowardice in the face of reality, it has shied away from answering straightforward questions: Why should taxpayers underwrite organisations that deny basic rights to those the far left targets? Since when does giving extremists a veto over who may speak, assemble or associate serve the purposes public funding was meant to advance?
The violence in Melbourne is not an aberration. It is the symptom of a society that by tolerating the intolerable is cutting its own throat, with Victoria leading the way. The “red fascists”, as Jurgen Habermas called them, may have swapped jackboots for keffiyehs, but their contempt for freedom is unchanged. If we will not draw the line, they will finish the work our complacency began.

How freely Our Henry flings around "fascist" as a term of abuse, while ignoring the many fascistic deeds, thoughts and activities that parade around him in the governments of the United States and Israel.

And speaking of that, time to celebrate a little destruction with the immortal Rowe ...

And just for fun, it seems an update is required...