In which the bromancer, a war mongering Liz, Mein Gott and Killer Creighton all jostle for attention amid the war fever ...

 

At last a feel good green energy/renewables story to start off the day, courtesy Politico (sorry, the intermittent archive is playing up this day)...

Just the thing to come in handy if there's an oil crisis!

But that chance to escape the miseries of the war was crushed when the reptiles turned up to play this day ...

Luckily the reptiles were right on it, and finally headlined a matter which should have been attended to earlier, without King Donald needing to claim the headline ...

It's all very odd, considering this MAGA man attracted the applause of the likes of Laura Loomer with this proposal ... (sorry, likely paywall, and the intermittent archive is currently down)

Talk about a warm glow and a sharing sense of caring for the sisterhood ...

Down below in the hive mind it was all war, war, war ...

Eek, not travel insurance! 

War is hell.

Over on the extreme far right, the bromancer led the way, but he was starting to wobble like a snowflake jellyfish  ...

The header: Iran’s defiant message turns heat back on Trump; The balance of risk in this whole operation is starting to move back to Trump. This odious regime has not run out of will power and self-belief.

The caption: Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pictured during a protest marking the annual al-Quds Day on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Picture: Saeid Zareian / Getty Images.

Strange, the pond had thought the mad Mullahs would just flap around a bit, hold up white flags, and head off to the ICC to be tried for domestic crimes (if only King Donald recognised the ICC).

It seems that they might be a bit stubborn, but the bromancer did his best to sound all in...

The selection of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to be Iran’s new supreme leader is a defiant, in-your-face, maximalist and rejectionist move by the government in Tehran. It contains several messages, some explicit, some implicit.
First of all, it’s a public declaration of will. This odious regime has not run out of will power and self-belief. This Iranian dispensation survived eight years of grinding, brutal war with Iraq, at a time when Iraq had tacit support, especially intelligence support, from the West.
Its primary goal has always been regime survival. The calculus behind the US and Israeli military strikes has been in part to convince the regime that its best chance of survival lay in coming to some arrangement with Washington – ditch the nuclear program, ditch terrorism, make a deal.
But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which now clearly runs Iran, so far is not remotely interested in that option. So the choice of Mojtaba represents a determination to defy Washington and Jerusalem.
It’s a message to the Iranian people as well; essentially a message of government continuity. Most Iranians will be very unhappy about this. They greeted the death of the old ayatollah with joy partly because they thought it meant fast and fundamental change to their government and, as a result, their lives. No such change is forthcoming yet.
However, the IRGC has also been sending messages to other elements of the Iranian state leadership and these are messages of contempt.

And what about the message from Pete Hogsbreath?

The bromancer made a double appearance, flinging around the word "cowardly", entirely fitting thanks to his many years in uniform fighting the good fight, thank you for your service, sir: The Australian's Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan details how the Albanese government is behaving “cowardly” amid the US-Iran conflict.

As for that old rule about not assassinating heads of state? Fergeddit ...

The poor old Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, and some of his civilian colleagues, keep saying, in public, to regional neighbours that the Iranian military won’t attack them any more. Pezeshkian even apologised to Gulf countries for the attacks they had endured so far. Almost as soon as his words were uttered they were overruled by IRGC leaders and judicial figures, and the drones and missiles kept flying at Gulf countries and other neighbours.
Pezeshkian is exactly the kind of relative moderate the regime would have put up as the notional leader if it had been at all interested in compromise. In fact it treated him with contempt, happy to humiliate him publicly and repeatedly.
What about Mojtaba? He himself has a long history with the IRGC. He also has a taste for luxury accommodation and the good life, like so many senior figures in allegedly revolutionary regimes (the classic text on this dynamic is still George Orwell’s Animal Farm). He doesn’t have credentials as a religious scholar comparable to his father. Reports are that the IRGC bullied the Assembly of Experts into choosing Mojtaba, perhaps exactly because Donald Trump had said he would be unacceptable.
So this is a big vote of confidence in Mojtaba, right? Well, not necessarily. So far, one result of the military attacks on Iran has been to reveal, and to accelerate, the complete control of the state by the IRGC. The IRGC obviously thinks it can control Mojtaba. But there are other dimensions as well.
By naming Mojtaba so brazenly, in obvious defiance of Trump, the IRGC knows it’s put a huge target on his back. Both US and Israeli forces will surely now make killing Mojtaba a high priority for however long the conflict continues.

Next came a reminder of that other war hero... President Donald Trump speaks during an event in Washington. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photos

The bromancer was troubled by a sense of a tear, a rupture in the MAGA force ...

Unless the IRGC has Mojtaba hidden in the deepest possible bunker, with his whereabouts known by the smallest possible number of people, with only analogue communications available, mainly whispered conversations and perhaps the odd cryptic handwritten note, the IRGC surely knows it has radically shortened Mojtaba’s life expectancy.
And if he holds on past a ceasefire with the US, then surely the Mossad is still likely to get him in the end. Perhaps the IRGC is quite sanguine about creating a new martyr for Shia legend, while its leaders remain as anonymous as possible. Their hope, surely, is that they can outlast Trump, not to win a victory, but just to survive. No regime on Earth more thoroughly deserves to be ousted than the Iranian regime, but their chances of outlasting Trump’s resolve are not negligible.
The balance of risk in this whole operation is starting to move back to Trump. The Iranians have succeeded in closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting the Gulf oil trade. The price of oil is skyrocketing. Stockmarkets around the world are plunging.
Trump began this war with quite low support for it among the American people. The MAGA base is ambivalent and anxious, not enthusiastic. This is especially so among extremist nut jobs such as Tucker Carlson, but he and other opponents of the operation on the right have huge social media followings, mainly among the MAGA crowd.
You can take your pick of polls but about a quarter, or just over, of American voters supported the war at its outset, which contrasts with strong majority support for George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq.
Trump is saying publicly that he wants total Iranian surrender and nothing less will do. He’s threatening to send in ground forces, though this is almost certainly a bluff. It’s just conceivable that a lightning-fast US special forces incursion, to take possession of the 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, which Iran is believed still to possess, could be extremely popular. But it would also be unbelievably difficult and dangerous.
The midterm elections are already looking pretty dreadful for the Republicans. They will almost certainly lose the House of Representatives and could lose the Senate.

Never mind, here's a snap of someone to be assassinated, what with him being a president n'all, y'all, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian during a joint press conference alongside Armenia's Prime Minister in Yerevan, August 2025. Picture: Karen Minasyan / AFP

The bromancer wrapped up by sounding a gentle alarum ...

That would make the last two years of Trump’s presidency much more difficult, and much less productive, than the first two years have been. All of Trump’s domestic advisers are urging him to get back to domestic politics and focus on the economy. A Democrat House in the midst of global economic dislocation could even move once more to impeach Trump.
Therefore, there’s a certain logic in thinking Trump goes on for a certain period longer – one week? Two? – from his point of view hopefully eliminating Mojtaba, then declares victory and goes home.
If he does this, even without achieving full regime change, he will have transformed global geo-strategic equations. China and Russia have lost three important allies – Venezuela, Syria and Iran; for, whatever happens, Iran is massively weakened out of all this.
Higher oil prices could help the Russian economy, and indeed higher energy prices also help Australia. Beijing and Moscow may also be pleased to see the depletion of the US stock of hi-tech missile interceptors and the like. But the broad authoritarian axis they were building has suffered serious blows.
Trump is good at declaring victory and moving on. He’s also well capable of overreach. The days ahead are critical.

Never fear bro, Liz was on hand, and she had just the right solution.

The header: The US has a missile problem – can we rise to the occasion? Operation Epic Fury has exposed strains in the US missile stockpile and defence industry. Australia has a rare opportunity to strengthen the alliance by becoming a key producer of missiles.

The caption for the tremendously revealing and informative snap: US missile launches during Operation Epic Fury have highlighted pressure on Western stockpiles. Picture: AFP

What an excellent idea. There's simply not enough death and destruction reigning down from the skies. (Then the long absent lord rained down brimstone and fire and Liz's missiles and all was well).

Instead of devising ways of protecting ourselves from such destruction, why not help spread it around the world?

Thanks Liz, you're an ideas winner ...

As Operation Epic Fury enters its second week, it is manifestly obvious that Donald Trump’s “Arsenal of Democracy” is running low.
The US, Iran and Israel appear to be locked in a race to the bottom of their respective missile stockpiles. Last week Israel estimated that Iran held about 2000-2500 ballistic missiles. Since the beginning of Epic Fury, Tehran has launched over 800 ballistic missiles at Israel and its neighbouring Gulf nations. In recent days, Iranian launches have fallen some 90 per cent as the US effectively targeted Tehran’s missile production and stockpile assets. But the effort to cripple Iran’s strike capability has drained US resources.
Washington’s missile stock is not getting replaced at the pace and scale our global environment demands. The ledger does not look great, with a widening window of opportunity for Chinese strikes on Taiwan – a war certainly much closer to home for Canberra.
Within days of Epic Fury, the limits of the US missile (and interceptor) stockpile were exposed. Indeed, the operation has revealed the true extent of a strained and quite deficient US defence-industrial base.
This should ring alarm bells for Australia – our principal provider and security underwriter is under strain. And in Trump’s world, America comes first.
This is Australia’s opportunity to bolster its strategic utility to Washington and position itself as America’s “missile man”. It is now or never. Canberra must take advantage of this situation and deepen the alliance by enabling diversification of America’s industrial base. By producing missiles, especially key components such as solid rocket motors and interceptors, Australia can directly support US power.
Washington is moving quickly to redress shortfalls in its munitions-industrial base. Recognising L3Harris as the leading producer of rocket motors for priority missiles and interceptors, the US government has announced it will take an equity position with a $1bn investment in the company’s rocket motor division.
L3Harris manufactures many of the critical components for in-service ADF guided weapons. For example, our government is spending over $8bn dollars to acquire both Standard Missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Not a single skilled job will be gained in Australia as this money passes offshore. Moreover, we’re unlikely to receive these missiles until Washington has replenished its rapidly dwindling stockpile.

The pond can't emphasise enough how pleasing it was to read Liz's plan for world mayhem, fuelled by dinkum down under diggers, perhaps even crow eaters,  The Port Wakefield plant will assemble Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Australia and its allies.

What an excellent shed. What an excellent snap of a shed. What a shed to bring woe to the world!

Meanwhile, Liz was still in full war monger mode ...

Through partnership with the very entity the US government has backed, Australia has a low-risk opportunity to bolster its strategic position with Washington.
This would embed into the alliance a robust element of self-sufficiency and offset any future concerns or demands for lifting Defence expenditure in Australia. We would simply point to our defence-industrial base as an enabling element of US power.
Australian missile manufacturing would inject true resilience into Washington’s military-industrial footprint. Australia’s geographical proximity to the Indo-Pacific theatre creates a value proposition that is unmatched for Washington – forward-based stores and trusted, scalable, industrial capacity.
Australia’s politically stable environment and skilled workforce make us an obvious choice. Canberra has a golden opportunity to address insufficiencies plaguing US missile inventories, while at the same time fortifying itself as an indispensable ally. To do this, Canberra must evolve from its modest ambitions and move beyond the aspirations of an assembler to that of producer.
Supply chains and stockpiles have long determined who wins wars. Diversified and resilient industrial bases will ultimately set competitors apart in future wars. Yet Australia’s missile course remains more of a “framework” of a plan.
The government celebrates plans to manufacture up to 4000 missiles a year by 2029. The new Port Wakefield facility is the first outside the US to produce Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. The government has been quick to produce media releases patting itself on the back, lauding the facilities role in supporting defence resilience and “reducing supply chain dependence”.
More recent operations in Gaza, the Red Sea and Iran have also illustrated that Washington’s most immediate replenishment needs have moved beyond shorter-range, ground-based rocket systems to the higher-end, interceptor munitions. But, again, we are not manufacturing missiles, Australia is assembling them. There is a monumental difference. The government’s grand plan is merely a slight of hand with crafty wordplay.
Signals of deeper integration between the Australian and US defence-industrial bases are not being seized by Canberra with the tempo that our strategic environment demands. For example, take the Precision Strike Missile. The US has just confirmed the first combat use of PrSM occurred during Operation Epic Fury, and it certainly performed.
Australia has an agreement with Washington to work towards the “co-development, co-production and co-sustainment” of PrSM, but the government appears averse to deviating from the established plan: PrSM is simply not the priority it should now be.
Australia should learn the right lessons from Operation Epic Fury, and do so quickly. Billy Hughes often stated “the price of vigilance is readiness”. In the late-1930s, Essington Lewis urged government to partner with Australian industry to prepare and stockpile for war. The true strength of a nation is its ability to sustain an industrial base in days of war.
Progress might be under way to move us from missile assemblers to missile producers, but it simply must accelerate. The Albanese government should be positioning Australia to strike, ready for the next war.
Elizabeth Buchanan is a senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. She is the author of So You Want to Own Greenland: Lessons from the Vikings to Trump (Hurst, 2025).

No doubt the bromancer shed a little tear of joy after reading all that.

Excellent work Liz, bomb 'em all, the long, the short and the tall, and only with complete destruction may the citizenry come to enjoy the pleasures of freedumb and democracy. 

It's the King Donald way, and it's great to have you on board.

And so to a tragic miss. 

Thanks to a correspondent's reminder, the pond had hoped to be able to draw attention to Dame Groan celebrating the Adam Smith anniversary, notes on which could be found in assorted places, including Reuters, From 1776 to 2026: Adam Smith's lessons for the global economy (The pond would have referenced others but the intermittent archive is currently down, and the pond does like to avoid paywalls).

Sadly the old biddy went MIA.

Instead the pond hopes that turning to a vintage, day-old, microwave reheated serve of  Mein Gott will do as a celebration of the dismal science. He can usually manage a groan with the best of the old chooks.

But first the pond would like to suggest a little reading bonus.

Who cleverly designed a back-up in case things went wrong? Per the ABC ...

Federal Government to spend $94 million stockpiling fuel in the US

Yes, it was the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, at the height of the speaking in tongues, liar from the shire's government...

How he chortled with glee at his cleverness ...

"I signed an agreement with the United States to access their reserves, simply because we don't have the storage space here in Australia right now," Mr Taylor said.
He said moving the storage reserve to Australia was a "priority" and that work to begin expanding domestic capacity would be done as soon as possible.
The Government began talks with the United States to access its reserve last year to increase supplies to meet the 90-day minimum required under international agreements.
At the time, before the coronavirus pandemic saw prices plummet, Mr Taylor said building a storage facility in Australia would be too high a cost.
"The opportunity to buy and establish a fuel reserve is an extraordinary one now with these historically low fuel prices," he said.
"The storage costs are small compared to the fuel cost."

In the original story at the ABC, Albo noted the immense stupidity of this, and what a relief to discover that we have more than enough fuel to last until early April if completely cut off from the world (thanks Graudian).

She'll be right mate.

Mein Gott was on the job, in a way only Mein Gott can be ...

The header: Is the US-Israel attack on Iran a bid to stop China controlling world oil?; China has stockpiled one billion barrels of oil while Australia faces potential fuel shortages following the US-Israel attacks which could reshape Middle East energy control.

The caption for the snap: Fire breaks out at the Shahran oil depot in Tehran after US and Israeli attacks. Picture: Getty Images

Mein Gott attributed the basest motives to corrupt Benji and King Donald. It wasn't about freeing the Iranian people, it was all about the oils, because thanks to the reptiles, everybody had refused to go renewables and EVs and such like ...

The attack on Iran’s oil storage highlights what the US-Israel attack on Iran was arguably really about – the control of the Western world’s oil.
Clearly, Israel’s main motive was its own protection, but the United States’ role was also part of a global oil strategy, when considering the dangers created by China and Iran, which were combining to gain great power over half of world oil supplies.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see the importance of a series of events that took place in the past three months.
First, the year 2026 opened with US forces conducting a large-scale strike on Venezuelan infrastructure, and a pre-dawn raid to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores. It soon became clear that access to Venezuelan oil was a vital part of this strategy. It was a first step in a potential Iran strategy.

The reptiles flung in a bit of war porn ... Missiles have been hitting Iran for more than a week now. Picture: AFP

It was only a three minute read, but Mein Gott knew all about supply and demand ...

Second, a month later, China, Iran and Russia conducted joint naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. These exercises highlighted the growing military co-operation between the three nations in what is a global energy chokepoint.
The Gulf region holds 50 per cent of the world’s oil reserves, and about 20 per cent of the entire world supply of oil is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.
Then, the US Navy began its major military build-up in the Middle East, with two aircraft carrier strike groups deploying or already present in the region to prepare for a potential conflict with Iran.
China buys about 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports. This accounts for roughly 15 per cent of China’s total crude imports. Accordingly, Iran is a critical energy source for China, but it also provides a lifeline for the Iranian economy, given the international sanctions. The Chinese oil purchases also assist in funding Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran announced it was switching to the Chinese global positioning system, which would have resulted in China gaining a major communication role in key global oil supply operations.
More seriously, Reuters reported in the weeks before the attack by the US and Israel that Iran was close to a deal with China to purchase supersonic missiles. The missiles have a range of about 290km and are designed to evade ship-borne defences by flying low and fast. Their deployment would significantly enhance Iran’s strike capabilities and pose a threat to US naval forces.
China and Iran were about to control a significant proportion of world oil supplies. Unconfirmed reports say delivery of the missiles was days away when the US decided to attack.
If the reports are correct, then the US had to act swiftly or China and Iran would be dominant powers in world oil supplies. Iran’s stalling tactics in the negotiations were designed to delay any US strike until after the missiles were in place. The US moved just in time and took the risk that China would aid Iran’s defence.
China did not help Iran. Many believe China has been humiliated in the region. Russia has already been greatly diminished. Their combined power is greatly reduced, but not eliminated.

Who better to talk about sovereign capability than a representative of the mob who thought it would be a good idea to put Australia's oil reserves in the USA? Opposition spokesman on industry and sovereign capability Andrew Hastie. Picture: Martin Ollman

Inspired by the pastie Hastie, Mein Gott entirely overlooked that little matter of the Oz oil reserve in the USA ...

The US and Israel have become in effect the two great oil powers in the Middle East. Iran appears to be alone and the enormous oil fires in Tehran illustrate the story.
But Iran clearly intends to fight for as long as it can. Those nations which understood and prepared for oil shortages will be fine. Foolish nations will not.
For example, China is prepared for an oil crisis and has stockpiled a reported one billion barrels – enough for 100 days in a Pacific naval war or a Middle East crisis.
Australian politicians have badly let the nation down and must take full responsibility for our shortages.
After my earlier comment last week, Andrew Hastie reminded me via a text that in 2018 he and former senator Jim Molan commissioned a review into our liquid fuel security, and Hastie criticised refinery closures. (Molan served in the army for 40 years and Hastie served as a troop commander in the SAS, and was deployed to Afghanistan.)
If fuel shortages hit Australia – and cutbacks have already started – then politicians who did nothing back then and are doing nothing currently should hang their heads in shame.
Like China, we should have storage of at least 100 days’ supply and the refineries to process it. If we have shortages, an angry nation will demand our politicians do their job to act in the national interest.

Splendid stuff, and even weirder was this note in Axios, Scoop: U.S. dismayed by Israel's Iran fuel strikes, sources say (sorry, possible paywall)

Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.
Why it matters: The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices.
Driving the news: The Israeli air force's Saturday strikes created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke.

• The IDF claimed in a statement that the fuel depots "are used by the Iranian regime to supply fuel to different consumers including its military organs."
• An Israeli military official said the strikes were intended in part to tell Iran to stop targeting Israeli civilian infrastructure.

Behind the scenes: Israeli and U.S. officials said the IDF notified the U.S. military ahead of the strikes.

• But a U.S. official said that the U.S. military was surprised by how wide-ranging they were.
• "We don't think it was a good idea," a senior U.S. official said.
• An Israeli official said the U.S. message to Israel was "WTF".

WTF indeed, what with King Donald lusting after all that oil, but credit where credit is due, what an astonishing scheme to plunge the world into chaos and confusion.

Finally the final question. 

Could Killer manage to get through an entire outing without mentioning Covid? 

It seemed easiest to screen cap Killer, who to be fair was outside the war zone, fighting a different kind of fight.

But the pond refuses to let Killer drift silently into the night, lost in the fog of war. 

If Killer turns up, the pond will always turn up ...

Yes, dammit, if you're naughty, AI will get you, and soon enough you'll be reading Killer AI (*IPA patented).

Sadly it was nowhere near the fun that a tribute to Adam Smith by Dame Groan would have been, but to answer that question about Covid.

Killer did avoid mentioning masks and vaccines, but he finally did wish a pox on those who did it easy in the pandemic:

Finally, there’s more competition for jobs than the official unemployment figures would suggest too. In addition to the 636,000 workers who were formally counted as being unemployed in January, an additional 1.2 million people aged between 18 and 75 say they would like a job but don’t meet the strict definition of unemployment.
The government will seek to couch what is likely an industrial relations matter as an issue of discrimination, by amending the Equal Opportunities Act. Victoria handed its industrial relations powers to the federal government decades ago, so the policy probably won’t survive constitutional challenge in any case.
Modern economies had the technology to work from home before the Covid pandemic, yet the practice was rare. Perhaps it will be again if AI wipes out jobs that can easily be done at home. The laptop class, who benefited the most from WFH policies during the pandemic, while most other workers suffered, should be careful what they wish for.

Admirable, and yet again no mention of Killer's day job at the IPA, though when thinking about that, the pond imagined it would be an immense pleasure to be able to WFH if there was the slightest chance of being trapped in an office with Killer and the rest of the IPA loons...

And so to the immortal Rowe to wrap up proceedings with a Kingly hole in one in the blood and oil tournament.