Friday, November 21, 2025

In which there's a goodly dose of Argentinian IPA Killernomics, while Our Henry keeps on fussing and feuding and quoting the ancient Greeks and others...

 

Apropos of the reptiles no longer being interesting, their range narrowing, their contributors ranging from the dull to the perverse, but without the excitement afforded by a decent kink ...

...Alas you seem to have learned nothing.
Yes, I appreciate that things are not easy for you. Having the likes of Sky News and The Australian newspaper constantly criticise you and feed you and your team a steady diet of misguided advice cannot be easy. But you mustn’t let this get you down because barely anyone listens to them any more. (Graudian)

Well yes, though perforce the pond hears the distant hum of the hive mind on a daily basis... 

These days, sadly or happily, as the case may be, it's just a steady, repetitive drone... but now it's on to the misguided advice of the day, though perhaps "misguided" is too kind a word for relentless obfuscation, distortion and disinformation.

And the pond immediately had to ask, is cricket the last refuge of the irrelevant scoundrel?



As if the pond would bother to provide even archive links to those idle distractions. Take your talk of sandpapergate and shove it where the Sauron sun don't shine...

Meanwhile, in another place, the reptiles decided to take an entirely different tack ...



No way that the hive mind could cope any of that ...

The entire point of the hive mind is to stay abuzz in the hive.

Meanwhile, down below tales of the once upon a time flanneled fools, climate was all the go ...and having ignored COP30, suddenly the reptiles were deeply anxious about COP31:



Have at it in an archive way if anyone wants to add to Friday boredom and ennui ...

2026 summit
Keystone COP Chris Bowen sets off on a global power trip
Chris Bowen to serve as COP31 president after Australia cedes hosting rights to Turkey
Chris Bowen will lead UN climate talks while managing Australia’s energy crisis, as the government abandons its bid to host COP31 in Adelaide.
By Ben Packham and Geoff Chambers

COMMENTARY by Geoff Chambers
Forget soaring bills, meet our Minister for UN Summits
Chris Bowen’s unprecedented dual role as UN climate summit president threatens to derail Labor’s promise to lower power bills and hit emissions targets.

Breaking
Fire forces evacuation at COP30 climate talks
Fire forces panicked evacuation at United Nations climate talks in Brazil
Panicked delegates fled a UN climate conference in Brazil after fire broke out in a pavilion, disrupting crucial negotiations with just one day remaining.
by AFP and AP

Put it another way ...



Amazingly, after this flurry of floozies, the reptiles still kept at their latest jihad as a way of reminding the world why the rag had become unreadable and irrelevant.



This day Dame Slap took another break and left her loyal minions in charge of proceedings...

EXCLUSIVE
Judge blasts Albanese over Higgins ‘deflection’
Judge pans Anthony Albanese over Higgins’ case ‘deflection’
Former Supreme Court judge says Anthony Albanese appears unable to distinguish between Brittany Higgins’ rape and discredited claims of a political cover-up.
by Paul Garvey and Sarah Ison

Remarkably the reptiles offered a new category of PREMIUM ... as if this aged jihad was worth some kind of PREMIUM ...

PREMIUM
Reynolds breaks her silence: ‘The truth is now binding’ after five-year battle
Linda Reynolds reflects on her five-year fight to clear her name – and urges Labor to admit mistakes and make things right. 

It turned out that what this meant was that the reptiles had reverted to a non-archival harder form of paywall, but just the tag confirmed to the pond that it was part of a deep desire to make the rag unreadable and irrelevant ...

Linda Reynolds reflects on her five-year fight to clear her name, saying recent court rulings have finally confirmed the truth. She urges the Albanese government, and especially the Attorney-General, to admit mistakes and make things right.

Nah, boring as batsh*t (*blogger bot approved), but at least it was a classic distraction, what with another tree having fallen in the NSW Liberal woods ...



Over on the extreme far right, a long forgotten ghost crying to women to have a a baby for him, turned up in the form of the ghastly Petey boy  ...

Productivity mire to continue if we ignore the causes
Unless we push for growth, average real wages will decline
In 2025, real wage levels are at the level they were back in 2012. No wonder people feel they can’t get ahead – no real wage increase in a decade and more of what they get is taken away in tax.
By Peter Costello

Never had the ticker, but it's good to have him come out of his retirement home and feed some of his ancient, aged pap to the hive mind.

To be fair, as the pond always is, it's a tribute to the desire to make the rag unreadable and irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the anonymous Mocker confirmed once again that the most likely culprit for this phoney form of anon facadism was the dog botherer ...

Accuracy, impartiality and fairness lost amid BBC hypocrisy
Benny Hill said it best about the BBC in a clever depiction of the progressive mindset at its most insufferable – smug, insulated, driven by animus, and refusing to entertain different views.
By The Mocker

Just the opening anecdote will suffice ...

Benny Hill said it best about the BBC.
In a memorable skit, the late British comedian plays a sanctimonious television journalist on assignment outside the locked gates of a country estate.
“I hate rich people,” an immaculately coiffed Hill tells his fawning producer as he gestures towards the property.
“I believe in a fairer distribution of wealth. That’s why I’m a socialist, you see.”
As Hill outlines his vision of realising economic justice for the impoverished, an old tramp asks him for a cup of tea.
“P*ss off,” says Hill. (*blogger bot approved)
It was a clever depiction of the progressive mindset at its most insufferable – smug, insulated, driven by animus, and refusing to entertain.

P*ss off (*blogger bot approved) is clever, neigh witty? Suddenly Tamworth seemed the urbane centre of a sophisticated universe

And what did the BBC have to say about this?

...many forget that Benny Hill first forged his TV career with a long stint at the BBC, where The Benny Hill Show ran on and off for an amazing 13 years from 1955-1968.

So it's just p*ssing from inside the tent ... (*blogger bot approved).

Enough of the unreadable and irrelevant, time for a deep dive with Killer of the IPA ...



The header: We absurdly turn blind eye to the nuclear energy future that is so obvious, Lucas Heights stands alone, despite the enormous economic and environmental benefits a small civilian nuclear sector would bring.

The caption for all creatures great and small, and please no screen caps of that three eyed fish in The Simpsons: People fish near the towering Dukovany nuclear power plant in Dukovany, Czech Republic. (Photo: Petr David Josek/AP.)

Killer remained deeply infatuated by Milei and never mind that $20 billion bail out ...

For news of that you have to turn to the WSJ ...(*archive link)

A taster ...




And with that unpleasant tale of a grifter, chainsaw in hand, but always with an insatiable desire for cash in the paw noted, it's on with Killer of the IPA ...

Argentina’s incipient economic renaissance under libertarian President Javier Milei has reminded the world just how disastrous state-led economic management has been for once one of the world’s richest nations.
Much of that malaise stemmed from the influential rule of Juan Perón, whose unique Latin fusion of socialism and fascism – Peronism – scarred Argentina’s development for generations.
But, in fairness, Perón did leave one enduring achievement: he launched a nuclear industry in 1950 that still provides safe, cheap, reliable electricity, and even supports highly sophisticated technology exports Australia can only dream of matching.
Indeed, it was an Argentinian company that built Australia’s only nuclear reactor – the Lucas Heights research reactor – in the mid-2000s, at a cost of about $400m. Unfortunately, that remains our only one, despite the enormous economic and environmental benefits a small civilian nuclear sector would bring. Instead, Australia has settled for one of the most embarrassing and fact-free nuclear debates in the developed world.

Now the pond doesn't have to spend any time noting the way that Killer - and indeed the IPA - have turned from straightforward denialism to a cannier form of nuking the country to save the planet, not that it needed saving because climate change is a religious cult indulged in by fanatical zealots.

It's enough to note the distractions featuring that chainsaw grifter ... Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer reacts to Javier Milei’s win in Argentina’s midterm elections. “South America is a mess with the seeming exception of Argentina, which is really good news,” Mr Hammer told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power. “Milei has been able to achieve a lot in a very short period of time.”




Speaking of the IPA, Wilcox managed to bring together those two IPA strands - its support of coffin nails, and its current desire to nuke the country, and if not, to continue with preferred emissions (do inhale):



It turned out that Killer had been on a junket - thank the long absent lord, the IPA still seems to have a travel budget:

When I interviewed Professor Germán Guido Lavalle in Buenos Aires last week – the director-general overseeing some 3500 nuclear scientists at Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission – he was far too polite to criticise Australia’s bizarre prohibition on nuclear power. “Kazakhstan was in a similar situation, but they are changing their mind,” he told me gently, before offering a more candid observation off the record about Australia’s globally unique ban.
In June, that former Soviet republic – the world’s largest uranium exporter – selected Russia’s Rosatom to build its first domestic nuclear plant, with a second to be built by China.
Lavalle also rejects the conventional Australian wisdom that nuclear is too expensive. He argues a new medium-sized reactor of around 300MW could be built for between $1USbn to $US1.5bn ($1.541bn to $2.331bn) – an order of magnitude lower than the absurd $600bn figure the Albanese government circulated when rubbishing the Coalition’s proposal for seven reactors at the last election.
“No, it’s not extremely expensive,” he insists. “The reactors’ capital cost might be high, but operational costs are very low if you take into account that it will be running for 40 or more years.”

The reptiles slipped in a snap of a sight that always pleases them, It was an Argentinian company that built Australia’s only nuclear reactor – the Lucas Heights research reactor – in the mid-2000s, at a cost of about $400m. Picture Thomas Lisson.



Would you want to buy a plant from this mob, deeply in hock to the IMF?



Killer would, what with the IPA brand of Killernomics being keen to nuke the country ...

This stands in stark contrast to the CSIRO’s GenCost assumption that reactors last only 30 years – a figure wildly at odds with global experience. Argentina’s two large reactors, built in the 1970s and 1980s and providing around 7 per cent of the nation’s electricity, are about to receive life-extension upgrades that will take them to a staggering 50 years of full-power operation.
“Refurbishment is a very good deal,” Lavalle says. “It’s about a third of the cost of a new reactor.”
New large reactors, he adds, can be built for about $US4000 per kW. “At that level they are in the same range as wind and solar – but nuclear produces energy even without wind and through the night.”
This is precisely what Australia’s beloved Levelised Cost of Energy comparisons omit: wind and solar only work about a third of the time, and require massively expensive transmission expansions and batteries that remain laughably inefficient and costly.
Argentina is a reminder of how ideological – and frankly unserious – Australia’s energy policy has become, even putting Labor’s three-eyed fish antinuclear campaign aside. As a global nuclear revival accelerates, driven by surging demand for airconditioning in developing nations, rising electric vehicle loads in rich ones, and the explosion of AI data centres, Australia is positioning itself as an irrelevant outlier.

Then came another snap designed to warm the cockles of the hive mind heart: Cooling towers of the Dukovany nuclear power plant are seen in Dukovany, Czech Republic. Picture: AP /Petr David Josek




Oh it was a feast of towers ...

China has about two dozen reactors under construction, France has plans for a least half a dozen new ones. Last month, the US, finally recognising the geostrategic folly of allowing its nuclear expertise to atrophy, announced it would spend $US80bn on at least 10 Westinghouse reactors. Australia, meanwhile, continues to pretend the 21st-century nuclear renaissance isn’t happening. Australia sends hundreds of officials to COP talkfests riven with antinuclear ideology. Argentina sent no high-level representative to COP30 in Brazil this year – nor to Azerbaijan last year. Don’t expect a delegation for COP31 either.
The Coalition has torn itself apart over net-zero emissions targets when more populous nations, including the US and Argentina, clearly do not care. One of Argentina’s assistant economic ministers, Luis Lucero, told me he didn’t know his country’s emissions target – and, mercifully, didn’t appear remotely concerned. (For the record, it’s a 21 per cent cut from 2007 levels by 2030, far easier than Australia’s 43 per cent cut from 2005 levels.)

Then came another towering distraction, featuring the ever denialist dog botherer,  Global Nuclear Security Partners Australia Managing Director Jasmin Diab discusses Australia's stance on nuclear energy, despite being one of the world's largest uranium exporters. “We are a nuclear nation,” Ms Diab told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “We also produce a lot of the southern hemisphere's nuclear medicine isotopes. “Yet we are not heavily involved in the biggest nuclear industry exhibition globally.”




Now it's not for the pond to rabbit on about Killernomics and the IPA desire to nuke the country, what with them not being content with best efforts to smoke the country to death.

That's best left to others; all the pond wants to do is observe Killer, for once free of masks and Covid, but still deep in his devotion to chainsaws ...

Milei has repeatedly called climate change a “socialist lie”. Australia pretends to be ashamed of its uranium, while Argentina is issuing new exploration licences – including one to Australia’s own Piche Resources – to develop reserves Lavalle hopes will one day power its own nuclear fleet.
Despite superb solar potential in the Andes and world-class wind in Patagonia, Argentina has sensibly ignored the fading ideological obsession with intermittent energy. The idea of subsidising unreliable power is laughable for a government determined to run fiscal surpluses. Compare that to Australia’s vast, opaque off-budget Capacity Investment Scheme, funnelling billions into technologies that require the wind to blow and the sun to shine.
In the early 1970s prime minister Billy McMahon choked off what might have become a domestic nuclear power industry by cancelling the Jervis Bay plant proposed by his predecessor, John Gorton. It’s not too late to try again. With a better-quality public debate inspired by the verifiable facts in Argentina and elsewhere, it might even be popular. More than 70 per cent of Kazakhstanis backed nuclear power in a referendum last year.
Adam Creighton is chief economist at the Institute of Public Affairs.

We must reverse Billy McMahon! It's never too late to do an IPA!

Killernomics at its finest, and deserving of an infallible Pope...



And so to one of the pond's few remaining treats, the almost unreabable, reliably pompous and portentous musings of Our Henry.

The pond uses the affectionate term while aware that it was as ancient as the nineteenth century, what with it having appeared in The Diary of a Nobody way back when, in the context of Mr Pooter's party ...

...Mr. Nackles, Mr. Sprice-Hogg and his four daughters came; so did Franching, and one or two of Lupin’s new friends, members of the “Holloway Comedians.” Some of these seemed rather theatrical in their manner, especially one, who was posing all the evening, and leant on our little round table and cracked it. Lupin called him “our Henry,” and said he was “our lead at the H.C.’s,” and was quite as good in that department as Harry Mutlar was as the low-comedy merchant. All this is Greek to me.

Some might say that Our Henry is all Herodotus or all Aristotle to them ... but what's the bet the ancient Greeks will get at least a mention?



The header: Phillip Adams attacks me, but is trying to take spotlight off the issue; Phillip Adams should now do what intellectual honesty requires: address the arguments or apologise for his appalling tweets.

The caption for the image, which looks appallingly like it has been colourised, an artificial way of making if seem more "now", but which in its own way is a deep distortion and betrayal of any historical authenticity: A group of Jewish civilians being held at gunpoint by German SS troops after being forced out of a bunker in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Picture: Ullstein Bild via Getty Images

It turns out this week that Our Henry was still intent on his jihad with the token hive mind leftie, aka sell out advertising man. so the pond should provide an archive link to Our Henry so that anyone wanting to follow the links can do so ...

You see, as part of the insufferable sight of old fogeys still going hard at each other, a little pre-history is required.

Our Henry's opening flourish ...

Posting last week on X, Phillip Adams claimed he had responded on these pages to “Henry Ergas’s allegations that I’m anti-Semitic”. And it is true that his article dealt convincingly and at length with his repulsion at the Holocaust and his personal connections to Judaism.

... referenced some earlier history ...

Not anti-Semitic to deplore Benjamin Netanyahu ‘overkill’ in Gaza




The pond can't quote them at length but must acknowledge the depth and nature of this jihad ...

Exploiting the Holocaust is an idiot’s game,  Phillip Adams joins a long line that stretches from neo-Nazis to Islamists in using the Holocaust to make cheap anti-Israel points.



Phew, talk about a lot of fluff gathering and navel gazing, as Our Henry returned to the well for yet another round ... with the key point here the clever way his relentless bluster entirely manages to avoid the ethnic cleansing currently going down in Gaza and the West Bank ...

But I no more alleged he hated Jews than that he harbours an irrational animus toward Eskimos. My contention was, and remains, that his tweet stating “7000 Jews died in the Warsaw Ghetto. 68,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza” was a shocking distortion of historical truth and of moral argument.
The fact is that of the roughly 450,000 Jews herded into the Warsaw Ghetto, barely 30,000 survived. At least 80,000 – not 7000 – died in the Ghetto itself, and another 340,000 were murdered during the successive deportations or in the death camps.
As for Adams’s claim that Israel’s conduct in Gaza was even more appalling than that of the Nazis, it abandons all reason by equating the Germans’ coldly planned extermination of utterly defenceless men, women and children with the civilian casualties of a brutal urban war waged against an enemy that systematically uses its own population as human shields.
Yet Adams, in what he presents as his response, did not address a single one of those contentions. Instead, he cast himself as the target of an ad hominem attack – an assault on his character rather than a challenge to his statements.

You see? No need to contemplate what has actually been going down in Gaza and the West Bank. Just offer furious, righteous indignation, preferably dressed up with ancient fatuities ...

The reptiles decided to run a snap of the wretched one, and the pond has to confess to its shame that it once had relatives who lived in Gundy, Broadcaster and journalist Phillip Adams at his country estate in Gundy, in the NSW Hunter Valley. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers / The Australian




Our Henry was relentless, but of course the main point is to wait for the old blowhard to throw in some classical references, as if that form of camouflage constituted an argument:

That manoeuvre would simply be hackneyed were it not as shop-soiled as the argumentative sleights on which his initial tweet relied. For well over 70 years – ever since the Stalinist witch-trials of the early post-war period, when Czech communist leader Rudolf Slánský, hanged in 1952, “confessed” that he and other Jews had “deliberately sought to intimidate” Zionism’s opponents by calling them anti-Semites – Israel’s critics have relied time and again on the same device: to recast any scrutiny as a spurious charge against them of anti-Semitism and thereby avoid engaging with the substance.
The trick has its own kind of low cunning. In pretending to repel an unjustified ad hominem smear, its practitioners launch one themselves, impugning both their critics’ logic and their integrity while posturing as the wronged party.
But the reason the ploy is now ubiquitous is not merely that it is a cheap “get-out-of-jail” card; it endures because it perfectly mirrors the ethos gutting serious debate on issues ranging from Gaza to Indigenous policy, multiculturalism and transgender rights.
That ethos spurns the politics of reason in favour of the politics of position. Every disagreement is reimagined as a confrontation between self-proclaimed victims – whose asserted victimhood confers moral superiority – and morally tainted perpetrators. Arguments no longer concern propositions but identities; disputes cease to be disagreements and become existential struggles.
We saw that logic on full display only days ago in the proceedings pitting Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi against Pauline Hanson, where Senator Faruqi’s barrister, Jessie Taylor, characterised Senator Hanson’s remarks not just as profoundly offensive but as an assault on Faruqi’s “whole identity”, “in which her Muslimness is integral and indivisible”. And as for Hanson herself, her conduct was, Taylor insisted, far worse than a momentary lapse or everyday political mudslinging: it flowed from Hanson’s own hardwired identity, with its “ubiquitous” and “notorious” “racism”, and a “hatred and hostility towards outsiders not divided cleanly along the lines of race or religion”.
Entirely lost in these battles-to-the-death between identities is one of the Judeo-Christian tradition’s most momentous contributions: the distinction between deploring the sin and damning the sinner.

Now some will reckon that a reference to "Judeo-Xian" tradition is enough, but the pond reckons Our Henry has got way more game than that to bring to the table, but first a couple more distracting snaps, Pauline Hanson arrives at Federal Court. Photo: NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard; Mehreen Faruqi arrives at Federal Court. Photo: NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard



The opening flourish to the next gobbet reassured the pond that the hole in bucket man has still got game, what with talk of - shades of Mr Pooter - the ancient Greeks:

The ancient Greeks made no such separation, viewing character and conduct as fused and fated. Nor can it be said that medieval or early modern Europe scrupulously observed it, when alleged heretics were routinely put to the sword or stake, their supposed errors inseparable from their very being. But it was precisely by reaffirming and redefining that distinction that the Enlightenment’s most searching thinkers – beginning with Pierre Bayle and John Locke – laid the foundations of modern liberty.
Elegantly synthesised in the mid-19th century by Orestes Brownson’s apothegm that “Error has no rights but the man who errs retains every right”, including the right to err, their core contention was that while attacking individuals on account of their ideas offends human dignity and is more likely to suppress than advance the truth, critiquing ideas is not just a right, but a duty.
It is no accident that the emergence of this contention coincided – indeed, for the first time since Aristotle – with sustained efforts to distinguish valid from invalid forms of argumentation, so that the untrammelled right to debate dogmas, ideas and opinions would allow the truth to shine.
That was the context in which ad hominem arguments came to be viewed as fallacious, for they breached what John Stuart Mill called “the real morality of public discussion”.
That morality not only demands the avoidance of “vituperative language” but also rejects the intellectual cowardice and “want of candour” involved in using attacks on a speaker’s person to avoid answering the substance of what that speaker said.
But Adams’s tweet, which claimed that I had called him anti-Semitic, did more than that. It exemplified the prevailing tactic of fleeing the argument and instead rousing one’s rusted-on supporters. In ancient Rome, upper-class men could rally gangs of roughs to intimidate critics and opponents; today, the gangs are mustered in X’s rigidly segregated echo chambers.
That effectiveness, however, compounds the harm it causes. Bayle put the danger with characteristic clarity: “This is the surest means of having no longer any common principle of reasoning, and of reducing (argument) to the laws of the strongest, and to these ridiculous maxims: this is very good when I do it, but when another does the same, it is a detestable action.”
That so few of those who saw Adams’s post will have read my article – and so many instinctively despise anyone routinely branded a “Zio” – is exactly what gives the tactic its devastating effectiveness.

And just look at the follow up name-dropping: Pierre Bayle, John Locke, Orestes Brownson’s apothegm, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, In ancient Rome

... all in aid of two old fogeys having a dust-up ...

The reptiles tried to defuse the fuss by featuring the discursive if minuscule Minns: New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has commented on the neo-Nazi protests on Saturday, claiming these protesters seem to have gone around the Nazi symbol law. “A lot of those activists have been incredibly strong about rejecting the government’s hate speech laws, and now they’re suggesting that we should be throwing the book using the exact same laws, so there’s got to be a double standard here,” Mr Minns said. “This proves, in my view, that letting antisemitism and racism out of the bag in any context metastasises in the community and results in more division and racism, not less. “The hate speech laws that we’ve pursued in the NSW parliament, we believe are important and send a clear message that we are not going to stand for this kind of hatred in our community.”




Amazing really, that a man of such singular incompetence could rule the NSW roost, but to be fair, the Liberal party are trying really hard to make life incredibly easy for him ...

Now back to the fussing and the feuding and the in-fighting, as Our Henry keeps bunging on a do ... and when Our Henry drags in Cicero, the pond considers it "case closed"...

In writing those words, Bayle well understood what had destroyed the Roman republic. The proliferation of invective – the “rabid, undisciplined tone” Cicero deplored – fostered a war of reputations that mirrored a deeper crisis of legitimacy. With formal procedures losing authority, political struggle shifted into character destruction, which made compromise impossible.

And yet is Our Henry currently not doing to Adams what Cicero deplored (not that the pond gives to hoots about the self-serving token leftie dressed in to pretend the hive mind isn't barking mad far right):

Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others...

Well perhaps not personal gain, perhaps just the control of Gaza and the West Bank, and don't you worry about those vexatious, difficult, pesky Palestinians who thought living in a place for centuries gave them some kind of right to exist ...

That not only intensified the conflict. As German historian Christian Meier showed, it also prevented the contenders from sensibly discussing, much less agreeing upon, any path forward. The collapse of public reason produced a “crisis without a solution”, condemning the republic to its eventual demise.
What the fate of our own polity – and, more broadly, of the West, which suffers the same ailments – will be remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: a civic culture that abandons the discipline of public reason abandons itself. That is why Adams, and those who deploy similar tactics, must be held to account.
And that is why Adams should now do what intellectual honesty requires: address the arguments or apologise for his appalling tweets.

Will the ancient advertising man dodder back into print to continue the feud? 

Will he attempt to match the Ciceo, Meier quoting hole in bucket man, in an attempt to match Our Henry at his game?

Will the pond have the slightest interest?

On the upside, there's always an end to this kind of feuding and in-fighting ... and in the interim, as the two old codgers go at it, there's something to be said for the sight of demented old men shouting at clouds and flailing away at each other...

That said, if the pond wanted dementia, it would rather the fun of watching King Donald rule those disunited states, sadly ignored by the reptiles, but celebrated yet again by the immortal Rowe ...




Waiter, a CU of the tats if you please, what with the immortal Rowe clearly relishing the chance to offer his latest take of the madness of King Donald I, kissing cousin to King George III...




14 comments:

  1. It says something about the Reptiles’ core audience that the Dog Botherer - sorry, the Mocker -assumes that the best way to capture their attention is to quote an obscure skit by an ancient British comedian who has been dead fora third of a century. You’d probably have to be at least 60 to remember Hill’s work. Even then your main recollection would probably be that pretty much every sketch involved that little bald bloke being patted on the head and ended with a few scantily-clad young women being chased around by Hill to the accompaniment of the show’s “Yakkity Sax” theme tune.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Très drôle.

      The pond used to race from the room whenever the theme song played, but to be fair, the pond's leering, aged uncle loved it and couldn't get enough of the bikini sightings ...

      For some reason, the pond finds it easy to transpose the dog botherer into the form of that uncle...

      Delete
    2. Rupert's Sun "couldn't get enough of the bikini sightings" ... "that little bald bloke being patted on the head and ended with a few scantily-clad young women being chased around by Hill".
      Is Lachy balding?
      In spirit.

      Delete
  2. It’s heart-warming to see the Hole in the Bucket Man reviving his tactic of bolstering a bitch-fest via irrelevant citations of Classical and Enlightenment figures

    I assume though that Our Henry is either unaware or doesn’t give a stuff that these days “Eskimo” is generally held to be a grossly racist term for indigenous peoples of the Arctic region. Still, that’s only become accepted in the last half-century or so, well after his intellectual cut-off point.

    As for Adams - it’s still about him. How many smug self-references are there in that brief extract?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "... these days “Eskimo” is generally held to be a grossly racist term for indigenous peoples of the Arctic region."

      I can Trump / Noem that! (unbelievably)...
      "U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols
      "The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”
      Updated
      November 20, 2025
      "The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month."
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/20/coast-guard-swastika-noose/

      Delete
    2. Two cheers for Our Henry and the pond for a moment thought that link was a spoof ...and yet, as Our Henry looked to feud with the navel-gazing Adams ...

      https://archive.md/aHVTm

      The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.
      Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines. The new policy, set to take effect Dec. 15, similarly downgrades the definition of nooses and the Confederate flag, though display of the latter remains banned, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
      Certain historic displays or artwork where the Confederate flag is a minor element are still permissible, according to the policy.
      Though the Coast Guard is not part of the Defense Department, the service has been reworking its policies to align with the Trump administration’s changing tolerances for hazing and harassment within the U.S. military. In September Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a review and overhaul of those policies, calling the military’s existing standards “overly broad” and saying they jeopardize U.S. troops’ combat readiness.
      The Coast Guard did not immediately provide comment.
      A Coast Guard official who had seen the new wording called the policy changes chilling.
      “We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to a fear of reprisal...
      ...Rosen noted that the wording in the new Coast Guard policy “could allow for horrifically hateful symbols like swastikas and nooses to be inexplicably permitted to be displayed.” The new guidance says that if a “potentially divisive” symbol is reported, supervisors should inquire about it. After consulting their legal office they may order the symbol’s removal but there’s no further guidance requiring that it be taken down.
      The new Coast Guard policy also limits the amount of time that service members have to formally report the display of a noose or swastika — which could be enormously problematic for personnel at sea. Like the Navy, Coast Guard members can be deployed for months at a time. The new policy gives them 45 days to report an incident whereas the previous policy did not have a deadline other than to advise that Coast Guard members who see a potential hate incident “should immediately report it to a member higher in their chain of command.”
      That 45-day deadline will have a chilling effect, said the Coast Guard official who had seen the new policy.
      “If you are at sea, and your shipmate has a swastika in their rack, and you are a Black person or Jew, and you are going to be stuck at sea with them for the next 60 days, are you going to feel safe reporting that up your chain of command?” this Coast Guard official said.
      Previous guidance put in place in 2019 said Coast Guard commanders could order swastikas, nooses or other symbols to be removed even if it was determined the display did not rise to the level of a hate incident. That policy was enacted months after a Coast Guard officer, Lt. Christopher Hasson, was charged with plotting a large-scale attack on Democratic lawmakers, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In securing his conviction, prosecutors cited evidence in his case showing Hasson to be an avowed white nationalist.

      The pond stands by, awaiting a firm response from Aristotle, but perhaps not Our Henry ...

      Delete
    3. A firm response yet all wet lettuce leaves to the "Don"...
      "Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries released the following statement:
      Kristi Noem is a corrupt disgrace who is doing grave damage to the integrity and reputation of the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Coast Guard. 

      "The recent reporting that the Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses and Confederate flags as hate symbols is shameful. Unfortunately, it is not surprising given that the Trump administration peddles hate and intolerance with malign consistency.  

      "The swastika is a symbol of hate associated with the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust. The Confederate flag is part of a painful history of racial oppression in America that enslaved Africans in this country for hundreds of years. The noose is directly tied to the thousands of horrifying lynching deaths of African Americans during the Jim Crow era. These are unquestionably hateful symbols that have no place in civilized society. 

      "The Coast Guard must reverse course immediately and Kristi Noem should resign. "
      https://jeffries.house.gov/2025/11/20/leader-jeffries-statement-on-trumps-dhs-allowing-swastikas-in-the-coast-guard/

      Pity the US Education department is no more...
      "The swastika, in various iconographic forms, is one of the hate symbols identified in use as graffiti in US schools, and is described as such in a 1999 US Department of Education document, "Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counsellors and Administrators", edited by Jim Carnes, which provides advice to educators on how to support students targeted by such hate symbols and address hate graffiti. Examples given show that it is often used alongside other white supremacist symbols, such as those of the Ku Klux Klan, and note a "three-bladed" variation used by skinheads, white supremacists, and "some South African extremist groups".[252]"
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

      CC Trump, Noem and nutters...
      "Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators"
      http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED437466.pdf

      Delete
  3. I wonder how many people would need to use a search engine to learn what a 'keystone cop' was/is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As in Killer Keystone Kops?

      The Killer Keystone Kops are fictional, humorously incompetent IPA scribblers featured in homages to silent film slapstick comedies ..

      It must be true, the pond read about the genre here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops

      Delete
  4. "– Israel’s critics have relied time and again on the same device: to recast any scrutiny as a spurious charge against them of anti-Semitism and thereby avoid engaging with the substance"... Hasbara.

    Explaining how explaining is not an explanation. And LOTS of shadows cast for the IDF.

    “potentially divisive.” softening the way for "Hasbara", once properly called propaganda, newspeaked into "the more contemporary Hebrew term hasbara introduced by Nahum Sokolow, which roughly means "explaining".

    "The public diplomacy of Israel, or hasbara(Hebrew: הַסְבָּרָה), includes mass communication and individual interaction with foreign nationals through social and traditional media, as well as cultural diplomacy. Organizations involved include the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and pro-Israel civil society organizations. Historically, these efforts have evolved from being called "propaganda" by early Zionists (when the term was considered neutral), with Theodor Herzl advocating such activities in 1899,[1] to the more contemporary Hebrew term hasbara introduced by Nahum Sokolow, which roughly means "explaining".[2] This communicative strategy seeks to justify actions and is considered reactive and event-driven."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

    One of our family friends in the 1980's formed a company with UNSW to broker all Israeli patents, as he put it... "half the world won't deal with Israel".... as per "Havas serves as an intermediary, executing contracts with U.S. firms on Israel’s behalf". Via...

    "Coffee Break: Hasbara Ain’t Cheap, Musk, Ellison, Saudis, All Tapped
    Posted on November 19, 2025 by Nat Wilson Turner
    "The practitioners of Hasbara are desperately ratcheting up their control of American corporate and social media and are reportedly seeking funding from the Arab Gulf states to help.
    ...
    "Payments are routed through Havas Media Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of the international advertising and public relations giant Havas. In practice, Havas serves as an intermediary, executing contracts with U.S. firms on Israel’s behalf. The documents show that since 2018, the company has received at least $100 million to promote Israeli tourism campaigns in the United States and it also works with other countries, including several in the Gulf, on similar projects.

    "The largest of the new hasbara contracts was signed in August with a firm called Clock Tower X, owned by Brad Parscale, who played a lead role in Trump’s digital campaigns in 2016 and 2020. The $6 million, four-month contract – signed between his firm and Havas Media on behalf of the Israeli government – calls for “strategic consulting, planning, and communications services to develop and execute a broad U.S. campaign to combat antisemitism.”

    "According to the filing, Parscale’s company will produce “at least 100 core pieces of content per month” – including videos, audio, podcasts, graphics and text – and “5,000 derivative versions” monthly, aiming for 50 million impressions a month. Eighty percent of the content will target young Americans on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Campaign messages will be distributed via Salem Media Network, a conservative Christian media group that owns more than 200 radio stations and websites. Parscale was appointed this year to lead Salem’s strategy.
    Lucrative work if you can get it and don’t mind a little blood on your fangs hands.
    The American Conservative has more details on the Salem Media aspect of this caper:
    ...
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/11/hasbara-paramount-twitter-oracle-tiktok-wbd-saudi-arabia.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Some might say that Our Henry is all Herodotus or all Aristotle to them ... but what's the bet the ancient Greeks will get at least a mention?

    "The header: Phillip Adams attacks me, but is trying to take spotlight off the issue; Phillip Adams should now do what intellectual honesty requires: address the arguments or apologise for his appalling tweets."

    Crocodile Dundee says... Those aren't appalling tweets, these are... enabled by "everyday Americans"!

    "@WorthRises
    Replying to @WorthRises
    "These executions cannot happen without private-sector involvement. Architects and contractors must design, build, or retrofit the chambers where human beings will be strapped down and shot to death. In Idaho, Elevatus Architecture and Okland Construction have taken the job.

    Worth Rises
    @WorthRises
    "TRIGGER WARNING: Here's how Elevatus architects and Okland contractors — everyday Americans — talk about building a firing squad execution chamber. "They would like a floor drain... It's OK if they have to mop/squeegee [bodily] liquids into the drain


    "Police State Watch
    Man Detained by ICE Found Dead, Hanging With Hands and Feet Tied—AttorneyNewsweek
    https://www.newsweek.com/ice-detainee-death-family-questions-hands-feet-tied-11066992?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Microsoft needs a billion like it needs a hole in the head. Influence... best served with Servility.

    "MSFT [Microsoft] annual free cash flow is $71.61 billion"

    Another "Killer remained deeply infatuated by Milei and never mind that $20 billion bail"... in, not out.

    "The header: We absurdly turn blind eye to the nuclear energy future that is so obvious"...

    Fancy new Neo-Techno-Capitalist-Autho-Ologarchy  intervention... filling a hole where no hole exists... ala

    "US pumps $1B into Three Mile Island nuclear plant reboot to keep AI datacenters fed
    A reactor at the site suffered a partial meltdown in 1979
    Dan Robinson
    Wed 19 Nov 2025 
    The Trump administration is so eager to get extra power into the grid that it is offering a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy to help it restart the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear facility.
    US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the move on Tuesday, claiming that the funding from the Department of Energy's (DOE) Loan Programs Office would lower electricity costs and strengthen grid reliability.
    One of the beneficiaries of this move is likely to be Microsoft. The IT giant last year signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation for electricity produced by the plant, now known as the Crane Clean Energy Center, as part of efforts to decarbonize the operation of its datacenters by securing "green" energy sources.
    . .
    https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/19/us_three_mile_island_loan/

    Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) CAPEX
    Annual CAPEX:
    $64.55B+$20.07B(+45.13%)
    June 30, 2025
    Summary
    • As of today, MSFT annual capital expenditures is $64.55 billion, with the most recent change of +$20.07 billion (+45.13%)on June 30, 2025.
    • During the last 3 years, MSFT annual CAPEX has risen by +$40.66 billion (+170.25%).
    • MSFT annual CAPEX is now at all-time high.
    Other MSFT cash flow metrics
    Annual FCF
    $71.61B
    MSFT annual free cash flow is $71.61 billion
    Annual CFO
    $136.16B
    MSFT annual cash from operations is $136.16 billion
    Annual CFI
    -$72.60B
    MSFT annual cash from investing is -$72.60 billion
    Annual CFF
    -$51.70B
    MSFT annual cash from financing is -$51.70 billion
    https://wallstreetnumbers.com/stocks/msft/capex

    ReplyDelete

  7. Petey boy: "more of what they get is taken away in tax." You might think your tax dollars are helping to run society, but no, there are a dozen large men in Treasury throwing your tax dollars into a furnace!
    "minuscule Minns"! Like it, DP.

    ReplyDelete

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