Back with a succulent serve of reptile stew, at least if you can swallow the swishing Switzer and a Lowy institute rep ...

 

Back again, after a trip to Silverwater in search of a router (don't ask), only to discover that the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again ...

Antisemitism inquiry
VCs in the dock: unis caught napping when hate came to campus
University vice-chancellors apologised for leaving Jewish students and staff exposed to antisemitic abuse on campus but refused to apologise for the concessions that ended pro-Palestine encampments.

Thank the long absent lord for the way the intermittent archive is currently working, because it could also take care of Jennifer, though it was the pond that had to send her there ... (does no one care about the lizard Oz?)

Royal Commission must mark clean break for our universities
Too many universities hid behind the veil of free speech and academic freedom as cover for tolerating the abhorrent.
By Jennifer Westacott
Columnist

That did give the pond an excuse to catch up with an old infallible Pope...

Continuing the winnowing, the pond, with some degree of joy, sent Sall's sally off to the cornfield, what with transphobia never the pond's flavour of the week ...

Sorry, Albo: We’re biological women, not culture warriors
Prime Minister has framed the issue as a ‘culture war’. Yet when a rally sign threatens a woman for defending her rights, that is not cultural debate.
By Sall Grover

How the reptiles love to bring in Giggling loons to conduct their culture wars.

Just to add that, some Rice was on the boil ...

DEFAMATION THREAT
Axed: Fury as nurse union pulls suicide article over ‘trans distress’
Nurses’ journal pulls suicide study over ‘trans distress’
Australia’s biggest nurses union retracted a journal article on transgender suicide research and accused its author of ‘hatred’. Now he’s threatening to sue.
By Stephen Rice 

According to the ABS back in 2024, About 0.9% of Australians 16 years and over are trans and gender diverse, including trans men, trans women and non-binary people.

And this is what preoccupies the fear mongers in the lizard Oz hive mind? 

Of course, because when the reptiles get their knickers in a knot and embark on a never-ending jihad, the fussing and the feuding and the fighting appears on a daily basis.

All that aside, is there anything happening by way of actual news? Some reptile on the extreme far right of the digital rag prepared to grapple with the world?

With all that winnowing away of reptile jihads, some might wonder, but fear not, the swishing Switzer was to hand to help ...

The header: Trump is now trapped in a conflict of his own making; Military power can destroy targets and even tyrants, but it cannot erase political realities.

The caption: The Strait of Hormuz and US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

Why did the pond bother? 

After all, the swishing Switzer could only manage a three minute read, but all the same the pond found it piquant.

Please, a little scene setting, with the pond heading way back to May 21 2026 , with Matt Gertz at MSNow ...

Trump and Fox News are trapped in a doom loop on Iran
The network’s flattery has deepened Trump’s unwillingness to back down.

Sound familiar? 

The swishing Switzer's blather about being 'trapped in a conflict of his own making' and 'doom loop' pretty well synch up...

President Donald Trump’s Iran war is a global strategic debacle and a domestic economic disaster that has taken his public support to new depths. With the president’s job approval hitting second-term lows, some Republicans are warning that he may hurt the party’s chances of retaining control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
But even as some MAGA pundits are sounding the alarm about the war and its political implications, Fox News’ coverage of the Iran war remains consistently glowing. Trump is depicted on the network as a steely-eyed negotiator who had “the courage, the wisdom, the fortitude to confront this Nazi-like regime,” in the words of one host. He now “holds the cards” against Iranian officials who are “grasping at straws,” a Fox correspondent said. On rare occasions when Fox hosts buck that narrative and express concern about the war’s impact on the country and the GOP, they quickly pivot back to the pro-war propaganda Trump craves.
In 2020, Fox’s executives and stars faced a network near-death experience due to a rare moment of honesty.
Fox’s lockstep promotion of Trump’s war reflects two crucial factors: The influence of current and former Fox hosts on the Trump administration, and the network’s desperate desire to hold on to its MAGA viewership at all costs. And because Trump’s own worldview is shaped by the network telling him that he’s engaged in a globally historic victory that just needs more time — and perhaps further escalation — the result is a doom loop without a clear exit.
In Trump’s first term, his obsessive consumption of Fox’s programming turned the network’s hosts and correspondents into prominent participants in national politics. That pattern has intensified in his second term: Trump has selected more than two dozen former Fox personalities to fill top roles in his administration, leaned on current Fox stars for counsel and seemingly ordered policy changes like the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to U.S. airports based on segments that caught his eye.
Network hosts like Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Brian Kilmeade have long supported military strikes against Iran, and over the first few months of the year, they repeatedly used their programs to urge Trump to take action. But since their predictions of a quick and easy resolution gave way to a quagmire, they have been unable to respond coherently. Instead, when not praising Trump for his bravery in starting the war, they suggest risky escalations they say will end it — from a special ops mission to seize Iran’s uranium to the targeted assassinations of more Iranian leaders.

So how's the Emeritus Chairman's favourite war, conducted by his favourite leader, holding up? Are the Faux Noise ratings a sufficient reward?

The swishing Switzer has his doubts ...

The first rule of war strategy is simple: don’t make your own position worse. Yet that is precisely what Donald Trump has achieved in the Strait of Hormuz.
Before Trump ordered the assassination of supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, freedom of navigation through the world’s most strategically important energy choke point was largely intact. Today Trump is attempting to restore a status quo that his own intervention helped to destroy. In soccer parlance, it is an extraordinary own goal.
Since his decision to launch war in Iran, the campaign has lurched through four distinct phases. First came the US and Israeli strategic bombing campaign (February 28-April 8), which failed to alter Tehran’s behaviour. It was followed by the US-led naval blockade (April 13-June 17), which likewise fell short of its political objectives. Then, confronted by rising oil, gas and fertiliser prices, growing economic uncertainty and the prospect of Republican losses in November’s midterm elections, Trump abruptly changed course.
On June 17, he signed a memorandum of understanding that, by any reasonable measure, represented a remarkable retreat. Washington agreed to substantial financial concessions even though Iran had emerged from the conflict more hard line than before, retaining its uranium enrichment program, ballistic missiles and regional proxy network.

The reptiles interrupted with an AV distraction featuring one of those classic lizard Oz thumb framings ... Donald Trump says he’ll replace the levy with trade and investment deals as the US launched new strikes minutes before the blockade on Iranian ports began

The pond paused to remember Media Matters ...

Right-wing media figures castigate Fox News for pushing “blatant propaganda” on the war in Iran
Former Fox hosts and other right-wing media figures have called out the network for “cheerleading” Trump’s war
Written by Reed McMaster & Isabella Sherk
Published 04/06/26 

So how's that blatant propaganda and cheerleading worked out for the Emeritus Chairman?

Still the swishing Switzer couldn't get on board ...

The agreement proved short-lived. When Tehran asserted that it retained effective control over the Strait of Hormuz – a position it regards as central to its strategic leverage – Trump effectively abandoned the memorandum.
Now, frustrated by Iran’s defiance, the US President appears convinced that a campaign of tit-for-tat military retaliation can coerce Tehran into allowing commercial shipping to transit the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian permission.
That is a bold ambition. It’s also an unattainable one. Each step up the escalation ladder plays to Iran’s strengths, not America’s. Tehran repeatedly has demonstrated a willingness to absorb punishment in pursuit of political objectives it considers vital.
Trump’s Iran policy has now descended into a farce. Having declared that he, like the mullahs, would impose tolls on commercial traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, he flip-flopped overnight as if he never really meant to contradict his own administration’s objective to restore freedom of navigation through international waters. He is flailing about for a strategy.
Supporters of the Iran war may argue that the US is at last confronting the 47-year campaign the Islamic Republic has waged against its neighbours, America, the international community and, indeed, its own people.
But if that were the objective, the strategy so far has produced the opposite result. Iran’s leverage has increased, the credibility of US alliances has been tarnished, the risks to global energy markets have grown and the prospect of a wider economic downturn has become more acute.

It wouldn't be a lizard Oz yarn without a snap of boys splashing about, Boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background. Picture: AP

On and on the swishing Switzer ranted, without mentioning the way that his kissing US cousins continue to host the most obnoxious members of King Donald's regime... so that they can do their hellfire, end of civilisation, war crimes in the offing routine

Quelle debacle ...

Only a fortnight or so ago, Trump declared that he had no desire to become a second Herbert Hoover, the US president (1929-33) whose economic policies are widely associated with the onset of the Depression. Today, however, his rhetoric increasingly echoes that of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, the last of the neo-cons, who never knew a war he did not support.
The reversal is remarkable. Having campaigned against America’s “forever wars”, Trump now appears determined to escalate the conflict with Iran, intensifying the air campaign and the naval pressure on the regime. Just one more heave, we are told, and the job will be done.
But does Iran yield to overwhelming pressure? The evidence so far suggests otherwise. Neither strategic bombing nor a naval blockade has persuaded Tehran to abandon what it regards as its vital interests. The argument that still greater pressure will somehow produce a different outcome is fanciful.
The mullahs represent a nasty, brutal Shia theocracy, but from their perspective they confront an existential threat.
Washington and Jerusalem have made little secret of their desire to see the regime blown up into smithereens. Under those circumstances, Iran’s leaders are prepared to endure extraordinary hardship before capitulating to Trump’s demands.
That is why Tehran is unlikely merely to survive this confrontation; it is seeking to exploit it. The regime’s objective is to emerge from the conflict with greater leverage, secure financial concessions to rebuild its economy and military capabilities, consolidate its influence over the Strait of Hormuz and strengthen what it sees as the foundations of a Pax Iranica across the Gulf. What a debacle.

Could this sort of yarn fail to mention the keenest of war mongers?A poster of Benjamin Netanyahu is paraded by mourners as they pay their respects to the late Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Picture: Getty Images

Well played poster boy Benji, as the swishing Switzer realised he might be treading in dangerous waters, so he reverted to "dear readers" syndrome ...

I don’t like this outcome any more than dear readers. However, the uncomfortable reality is that Trump has miscalculated spectacularly: the US and Israel have emerged from this campaign in a markedly weaker strategic position than they anticipated.
The belief that a revived strategy of tit-for-tat coercion will now succeed where strategic bombing and a naval blockade both failed is as implausible as the original bombing and blockade strategies.
Put simply, Iran cannot be bombed or bullied into abandoning its principal source of leverage.
The lesson is clear: military power can destroy targets and even tyrants; it cannot erase political realities. Until Trump fully recognises that distinction, he will remain trapped in a conflict of his own making, pursuing an objective that recedes further with every escalation.
Tom Switzer is presenter of the Switzerland YouTube podcast and a contributor to The Australian and Sky News Australia.

Well dear readers, that's got to be worth an immortal Rowe, celebrating the much-plugged movie of the moment, with a peril as dire as Circe or the Sirens or even a one-eyed mad Cyclops ...

For a bonus, AI has been in the news much of late, so the pond turned to Charles ...

The header: Australia should become a hub for training US frontier AI models; Should Beijing also take a lead in frontier AI research, the risks of war in Asia would grow considerably.

The credit for the collage which frankly shouldn't have been credited for the sake of failing reputations: Anthony Albanese’s speech showed Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump Australia was behind America’s efforts to push artificial intelligence. Artwork: Frank Ling

How silly of the pond not to realise. The entire point of AI is preparation for the coming war with China, which, in the absence of the bromancer, the pond still expects to happen by Xmas.

This means that we should roll over and get behind mad King Donald, because who wouldn't love to support such a model of clarity, a devotee of peace-making, not to mention the many exceptional talents behind US AI, from Sam Altman to Uncle Elon ...

Carry on Charles Lyons-Jones, sell the hive mind a fine bill of goods ...

Anthony Albanese’s speech at the University of Sydney on Wednesday helped position Australia as a key ally behind American efforts to push the frontier of artificial intelligence research but stopped short of providing AI giants such as Anthropic everything they asked for, including exemptions to Australian copyright law.
Casting aside the economic arguments against providing these exemptions, there is a strong national security case for Australia becoming a hub for the training of America’s frontier AI models, especially when you consider the logic behind Australia’s alliance with the US.
Australia chooses to be an ally of the US not solely for shared democratic values but also because the alliance grants privileged access to technologies that provide the military and intelligence community a major strategic advantage. AI is arguably the most transformative technology in human history. Maintaining privileged access needs to be understood as Australia’s top national security priority because of the profound vulnerabilities that could emerge without it.

Shared democratic values?

Sorry, the reptiles decided that it was better to slip in a snap of Albo, Mr Albanese has a strong national security case to support AI.

Charles kept on plugging away, keen to sell AI, security, Albo and the joys of getting into bed with mad King Donald and the tech bros ...

Take cyber security. According to leading-edge research, some frontier AI models can now outperform humans in some complex scientific tasks. For Australia’s national security agencies, that represents a huge challenge, as most government networks are secured by traditional cryptography now at risk from quantum computing.
The date that quantum computers can break these systems is known as Q-Day. To prepare, the Australian Signals Directorate has required government agencies to include post-quantum computing considerations in all new procurements since 2024, with the aim of transitioning all systems to post-quantum networks by 2030.
But with frontier AI models accelerating research and development in quantum computing, there is a significant risk that adversaries such as China could bring forward Q-Day and penetrate government networks before the transition has fully taken place.
Training frontier models domestically will offer Australia a safer transition to post-quantum computing than alternative pathways, as it will provide assurance of continued access to these powerful AI systems during a period of heightened risk.
The modern battlefield is another area where training frontier AI models can help Australia maintain a strategic advantage. America’s use of AI in targeting for missile strikes against Iran offered insight into a world where the most powerful military capabilities are augmented by frontier models. Positioning Australia to take advantage of any future applications of frontier AI in air, surface and subsurface warfare needs to be front of mind, particularly as AUKUS Pillar II gathers steam.

The reptiles needed a villain ... Xi’s military ambitions require Australia to address its AI vulnerabilities. Picture: Getty Images

But does this barbarian know how to do a proper looting?

In deep fear of one dictator, Charles kept on pandering to the Americans, currently being run by a mad King...

Asia’s rapidly deteriorating strategic environment further strengthens the case for Australia making use of its continental geography, vast natural resources and abundant energy to help America maintain a lead in frontier AI research.
China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to ready itself for a successful invasion of Taiwan by 2027. The extent of involvement by Australia, as an American ally, in any Taiwan contingency will be largely determined by decisions taken in the White House. Complaining about this supposed lack of sovereignty will hardly change the reality of it. Given that warning time for a PLA invasion of Taiwan will begin from next year, there is little that can be done to increase Australia’s freedom of action in the near term.
What Australia can do immediately is improve its resilience, which is best done with American expertise. Currently, Australia’s AI capability is overly reliant on undersea cables that would be highly vulnerable in wartime. Xi’s military ambitions require Australia to address that vulnerability soon. Developing sovereign AI infrastructure for US-based firms, which own the most powerful frontier models, will go some way to bolstering Australia’s wartime resilience in the near to medium term.
Longer term, Australia will face greater risks if it doesn’t help America to shore up its advantage on AI’s frontier. Despite the US military’s successful deployment of AI during the Iran war, China remains well positioned to lead in integrating AI models into robotics and military technologies. Should Beijing also take a lead in frontier AI research, the risks of war in Asia would grow considerably as China could assume that its technological edge will enable success in an invasion of Taiwan.

There came a final visual plug ... Developing sovereign AI infrastructure for US-based firms – as Donald Trump wishes – will go some way to bolstering Australia’s wartime resilience. Picture: Getty Images

All that did was make the pond reach for another 'toon ...

Charles, who had only managed a feeble three minute read, spluttered out in a final gobbet designed to sell his bill of AI goods, because China ...

China’s intelligence services understand the importance of AI to the PLA. In April China’s most senior spy chief, Chen Yixin, wrote an influential article in the Communist Party’s theoretical journal arguing that “technological competition (had) entered its most intense, strenuous and critical period of close-quarters combat” with the US.
Chen’s article was emblematic of Beijing’s view that it is embroiled in a new cold war. To stop this new cold war turning hot, both China and the US will need to maintain a balance of threat. But unlike the previous Cold War, both sides will be competing in an environment where credibility as a great power will hinge on the ability to augment military and intelligence capabilities with frontier AI models.
Stability is far from assured in this volatile strategic environment. For Australia, the costs of developing a truly sovereign frontier AI capability will be prohibitive and the chances of success slim. That’s why the best contribution that could be made to global stability by Australia, as an ally of the US, would be to back American leadership at AI’s frontier.
Charles Lyons-Jones is a research fellow at the Lowy Institute.

That's the best that the Lowy Institute could rustle up?

That pathetic needy brand of wheedling and whining and fear mongering and bending the knee and tugging the forelock?

Let the immortal Rowe have a final word on that ...

So many fine cameos, though the immortal Rowe felt the need to identify one nonentity ...

There was something about this pair that struck a chord, or at least a jam jar ...

 

And now, may Pod save America, because God doesn't seem up to the job, not if Her nominees are any guide ...