"O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!", said the ecstatic toot-tooting Mr Toad, to which the pond might add, "oh frabjous joy", because the reptiles have discovered a "secret" black hole.
‘Money monster’: Labor’s secret $170bn budget black hole
The mystery missing billions in Labor’s federal budget have sparked serious concern about spending blowouts fuelling inflation ahead of Tuesday’s Reserve Bank rate decision.
By Matthew Cranston
And the canny Cranston inspired the lizard Oz editorialist to go right off the rails - dammit, somehow they managed to link it to the Melbourne Cup!
What astonishing skill, what relevance! How these "secret" black holes keep on giving...
Meanwhile, the Australian Daily Zionist News was at it again ...
Teachers are already refusing to teach Muslim students about the Holocaust, so a new curriculum mandate is unlikely to repair Australia’s crumbling civic foundations.
By Alex McDermott
The pond won't go there - it's in the archive - but will mention Jeff Sparrow's outing in Crikey, which luckily can be found outside the paywall ...
The new report by Anthony Albanese’s special envoy to combat antisemitism is as conspiratorial as it is a genuine threat to anyone expressing criticism of the state of Israel.
To that end, Segal wants, among other things, a special ombudsman to monitor the ABC and SBS; new codes of conduct for cultural organisations; restrictions on the use of grants for arts, sports or research; the operationalisation in higher education of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism; a review of the school curriculum; and “continual review and reform by … governments of gaps in the legislative framework”.
All this is warranted, she says, because “the language of human rights and its greatest crimes — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. — has increasingly been appropriated” against Israel. On that basis, Segal seeks the institutional adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, explaining that “criticism of the Israeli government” should only be considered legitimate if “the level and standard of scrutiny applied is equivalent to the standards to which one would hold other governments in similar circumstances”.
There is a roll call of experts accusing Tel Aviv of genocide: a partial list includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Middle East Studies Association, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
In the name of Segal’s vaunted equivalency, we might expect to find Israel listed alongside the other regimes Australia currently sanctions for human rights violations (beyond individual ones directed at Ben-Gvir and Smotrich). You’ll be shocked to learn that this is not what Segal seeks. The scrutiny she considers appropriate was demonstrated back in 2023, when Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong had the temerity to suggest Israel might “cease the attacking of hospitals”.
In response, Segal, then president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, cosigned a statement condemning Wong’s remarks that said they “only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters”. The same logic dominates her report. Segal argues that claims Israel has committed genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid “allow for the depiction of anyone who associates or aligns with Israel as complicit in its purported evil”. But when confronted by genocide, most of us do not worry that our condemnations might upset those who “associate or align” with the perpetrators.
In Segal’s report — a document in which the word “Gaza” appears only once — the feelings of Israel’s supporters take precedence over all else. For her, “the Palestinian cause” represents a “gateway issue, of sorts … used by far-left activists to magnify their appeal and prominence and to attempt to introduce traditionally moderate Australians to radical and anti-Jewish propaganda”.
It’s crazy, conspiratorial stuff.
The report warns that “references to “Zionists” can function as a proxy for Jews, particularly where Jews in Australia are treated as collectively responsible for the actions of Israel (acts of conflation)”. That’s certainly true, which is why organisations like the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) make the distinction between Judaism (a religion and ethnic identity) and Zionism, urging the recognition of “the political and religious diversity of the Australian Jewish community”...
And so on, and the pond guarantees you won't be reading any of that sort of stuff in the lizard Oz until at least the twelfth of never (and that's a very ...)
What you will be reading is the pond's very favourite reptile, the bromancer, skipping right past the current electoral action...
Luckily the bromancer wasn't in to Tucker and his theory about the mad King wanting to nuke the mad Mullahs ...
Unearthed Clips Show Carlson Repeatedly Claim Trump is Weighing Iran Nuke Strike
... but the pond did enjoy the way he managed to articulate three war aims, as if the aims of the mad King and minions were remotely coherent and comprehensible, as opposed to being roughly equivalent to Melbourne's weather, ever changing ...
The bro's insights were bolstered by a beaming blonde of the kind beloved by Faux Noise...
How the bromancer loves the drumbeat of war, how he loves to pound the skins, but then he wasn't appointed Reichsmarschall des GroßAustralisch Reiches so he could practise his knitting skills.
Has it though? The pond supposes it's a matter as to whether it's AIS-visible tanker tonnage, or black ships running dark ...(who knew there were sites dedicated to tracking the traffic?).
In conclusion, how about a shot of crazed jihadists, designed to terrify the lizard Oz hive mind, and send them on their own jihad? Sure thing...
Curiously, Luckovich had another figure in a similar pose ...
Meanwhile, it was left to the echo Chambers to propose a solution to what might ail the country.
While the pallid, wan bromancer ran up the white flag of despair, the echo Chambers knew what had to be done...
Anthony Albanese faces pressure to use upcoming Trump summits to end wars the government blames for devastating Australia’s economy.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor
Get in his ear! How easy is that, what a quick fix ...
Yes, forget all that blather fest with King Chuck and the remnants of empire, and as for taking climate change seriously, in what alternative universe are we living?
What needs to happen is that Albo needs to sort out mad King Donald, and maybe get on board with him, and as for what might happen in the mid-terms and what that might produce in the United States? Fergeddit...
With the US ambassador to Australia David Brat and the Australian ambassador to the US Greg Moriarty both in place, the relationship between the White House and Albanese government should be strengthened.
As Australians tighten their belts, Albanese must prove the summit season is value for money and secure outcomes that are critical to the nation’s economy and security.
And that serves as an introduction to the real Tuesday treat, a rampant Dame Groan, revived by the prospect of disaster, and the hope that we'll all be rooned, if not by the end of the week, then certainly by Xmas ...
Please begin with one of those astonishing reptile collages for which there's no credit ...
The pond was shattered to discover that the Groaner hadn't discovered the black hole featured by the canny Cranston and the lizard Oz editorialist, but perhaps that was because it was too "secret".
On the other hand, the Dame didn't need cheap tricks like that to arrive at totally rooned gloom ...
Eyes wide shut now ...
Potent points, and Dame Groan wasn't done yet ... it was time for the cardigan wearers to cop a pounding, together with Jimbo ...
Not Petey boy again. Will the reptiles ever tire of their desire to return to the ancient days of Petey boy and the lying rodent?
And then all too soon the pond had arrived at the final gobbet of despair, what with all this talk of EVs and batteries and renewables, when the world is in tip top shape, and if there was just more coal and more emissions, what a fine prospect for the younglings ...
The pond has laid out the Dame Groan banquet, and expects correspondents to enjoy the feast ... with the important message from the Dame that there's no need to worry about all those other horses in the race aiming to make life miserable ...
And with the immortal Rowe setting the tone, so to a final thought from the reptiles, actually talking about the current election campaign, and hoping against hope that maybe the GOP might yet survive ... at least in the Senate, what with it all being really hard to turn the Titanic around ...
And with that a couple of 'toons ...
A little midterm parodry reflecting on Trump’s obvious descent into dementia.
ReplyDeleteApologies to Elvis Costello for hacking Oliver’s Army.
Donald Is Barmy
Just stop him talking
All he talks is shite
His mind is sleepwalking
And he is higher than a kite
All he’s done is split the nation
Now’s the time for Donald’s abdication
Donald is barmy - he’s so insane
Donald is barmy - he’s off his face
If it was Biden or anyone else
They’d be put away!
If nothing changes
Maybe the end of his career
Could somehow be arranged
With just a word in Mr. Putin’s ear
With a bit of luck the plan might work
They could send him to St Petersburg…
Donald is barmy - he’s off the chain
Donald is barmy - he thinks he’s gay!
And he shouldn’t have ever been President
Not for one day!
Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh!
Kez, you wonderful rhyme maker.
DeleteI used to have Elvis Costello's album with Oliver's Army. Not my fave track but solid.
"They could send him to St Petersburg"
Where his Mar a Lago "Potemkin village that provides a façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.", is made.
Reading this it seems Trump has many Potemkin mini Taco Trump's so may be a very appropriate moniker for the conspirators. Potemkin Hegsbreath. Elon Potemkin. Etc. Trump certainly acts like a Russian Emporer.
"The original story was that Potemkin erected phony portable settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the Russian Empress and foreign guests.
"Potemkin became governor of the region. Crimea had been devastated by the war, and the Muslim Tatar inhabitants of Crimea were viewed as a potential fifth column of the Ottoman Empire. Potemkin's major tasks were to pacify and rebuild by bringing in Russian settlers. In 1787, as a new war was about to break out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Catherine II, with her court and several ambassadors, made an unprecedented six-month trip to New Russia. One purpose of this trip was to impress Russia's allies prior to the war. To help accomplish this, Potemkin was said to have set up "mobile villages" on the banks of the Dnieper River.[3] As soon as the barge carrying the Empress and ambassadors arrived, Potemkin's men, dressed as peasants, would populate the village. Once the barge left, the village was disassembled, then rebuilt downstream overnight.[2]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
And wisper is, he'll may nuke Iran. That'll need a Dylanesque ballad Kez. Thanks.
That rates five Uncle Dick kites ...🪁🪁🪁🪁🪁
DeleteCheers Anony and DP! And thanks for the kites DP!
DeleteDP "What astonishing skill, what relevance! How these "secret" black holes keep on giving...
ReplyDelete"Victoria's troubled budget would get worse under a Coalition government, two economists have warned, because plans unveiled so far fail to cut enough spending while reducing taxes.
The shortfall could blow a $9 billion hole in the state's finances, according to one estimate.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has so far promised to replace the controversial emergency services volunteers fund with the old fire services property levy, cut land tax, remove payroll tax on private schools and remove stamp duty for first-home buyers.
Ms Wilson is promising to deliver a cash surplus by 2032, partly funded by a 10-year freeze on public service hiring.
RMIT professor of public policy David Hayward, who conducted the analysis that found the $9 billion costings hole, said the plan did not add up.
"It's all contradictory," he said.
"She's led with something like $7 billion of tax cuts over four years, while promising in five years' time to return the budget to a cash surplus."
He identified spending cuts of $6.4 billion but also $3.4 billion in new spending initiatives.
"There's savings, but they don't add up enough to compensate for the massive tax cuts," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-19/economists-concerns-liberal-coalition-surplus-plan/107280322
The horse.
Delete"Chris Richardson’s Post
Chris Richardson is an Influencer
"AN EXTRA $170bn? WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT THAT There's a new budget story out ...
...
"So, umm, yes. That's a lot. Two things stand out - that
(1) existing policies keep costing more than budgeted, and that
(2) Australians aren't being appropriately informed about that.
Both of those things worry me. At a lazy extra $170 billion, the dollars are massive. To the government's absolute credit, its decisions on NDIS and CGT saved a lot of money. And they're losing political skin because of those decisions. But those huge savings only led to a modest improvement in the budget bottom line. The savings were mostly eaten up. But we don't know what ate them - frustratingly, it was a mystery money monster.
My best guess is that existing policies simply ended up costing more than previously forecast (with hospital costs potentially a part of that). I've been writing about Canberra's growing challenges with cost forecasting for a while, and this says that problem keeps getting more expensive. But the mystery is why this had to be such a mystery in the first place. The federal budget is our national social compact, and there could be few things more vital to inform Australians about than a massive extra increase in coming costs. So why wasn't the public informed? Why did this have to be revealed in a newspaper story rather than in a discussion in the budget papers? I don't get it. If the future is more expensive than we thought it was going to be, then we need a national conversation on how to pay for that. Hiding from that conversation doesn't help anyone. The cover up usually creates way more problems than it is worth ...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chris-richardson-0086441b6_labors-170bn-budget-black-hole-a-mystery-activity-7523039069501579264-FXHs
Abbott, Tony
ReplyDeletePeriod of Service: 18/09/2013 - 15/09/2015
Subject(s):
• Manufacturing Transition Programme
• Budget 2015
• Bill Shorten’s plan to raid your super piggy bank
• Labor’s $58.6 billion budget black hole
• Daesh death cult
• live cattle trade
• iron ore market.
...
QUESTION:
What do you make of Bill Shorten’s call to cut super tax concessions to very high income earners?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that yet again, Bill Shorten is attacking people's savings. This is a Labor Party which hasn't learned. It's a Labor Party which is still addicted to spending and taxing. There's a $58.6 billion budget black hole which the Labor Party now has to fill. Obviously, they've decided to raid our savings, your savings, to solve their problem.
This is one of the fundamental differences between the Coalition and the Labor Party. We respect people's savings.
...
QUESTION:
"Chris Bowen says the super tax concession will cost more than the pension though by the end of the forwards?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, again, I think that's first of all wrong and I also think that it's typical of the attitude of the Labor Party. There is a world of difference between tax funded benefits and people's own savings. Yes, superannuation is tax-advantaged. Still, you've got to make the money and put it aside in your super account – so it's your money. It's never government money – it's never government money. It's always your money and government should respect that and the Labor Party should wake up to the fact that superannuation savings belong to the people who worked hard to accumulate those savings and they should stop seeing Australians' super as a piggy bank that they can raid whenever they are in trouble.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, it’s now been 100 days since the failed spill – why should the Government keep you as its leader?
[Blah blah blah ]
...
https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24469
Our Black Holes Good, Labor's Black Holes Bad.
ReplyDeleteDP "What astonishing skill, what relevance! How these "secret" black holes keep on giving"...
"From Trump to Hanson, Orwell’s pigs are back "
...
"In Australia, the Trump political franchise is held by One Nation, a party led by Pauline Hanson, whose best mate is the richest person in Australia, Gina Rinehart, a good pal of the US president.
...
The bill seeks to regulate and minimise harmful content promoted by social media algorithms and AI chatbots, including the encouragement of eating disorders, pornography, “manosphere” misogyny and bullying.
We shouldn’t be surprised that One Nation opposes the bill, given its rhetoric on social media freedoms has been uncannily similar to that of Trump and the tech bros.
It is surprising, however, that the Coalition leader is also considering opposing the bill, rather than working with the government to tighten the drafting and reduce the bill’s additional regulatory red-tape burden on small business.
...
https://archive.li/KLuKa#selection-3081.0-3081.9
Hat tip amediadragon
Erm - yes, the Dame goes for the groan rather than seek the positive. So she offers ‘biggest impediments to productivity growth’ - presumably, as remembered by a sometime Commissioner for Productivity. The ‘pro-union changes to industrial relations’, although ‘radical’, do not rate more specific identification. Actual studies on what contributes to productivity growth through application of better technology or process, often mention how spread of knowledge through an industry is promoted through a better educated/trained workforce AND management, which, in turn, is promoted through - call it ‘industrial democracy’; workers at all levels being able to comment and contribute across strata in their organisation, and across organisations.
ReplyDelete‘Vast loss of productivity in the energy sector’ - again, without much detail, but then it is seen as axiomatic to Rupert’s readers. The loss of productivity due to catastrophic changes in climate and local environment need not concern the committed reptile reader - we are all going to die, some sooner than others, and how old-fashioned is it for ‘economists’ to look at alternatives to what they are promoting?
‘Crowding out of private sector activity’ invites a simple response - popularised by Mariana Mazzucato, who telll sus of the ‘impatience’ of venture capital. Yes, capital can be highly mobile, but it has little patience. Where a new technology or process will need something like 15 or more years to be part of an industry - venture capital looks for a high dividend in about 3, or an IPO in much the same time. If that does not happen, it moves to the next shiny thing.
There was a flurry of interest in robotics in the ‘care economy’, but thinking still seems to be in terms of humanoid forms, prone to run into, or fall on, people at random. Try not to think of what 200 kg of falling metal might do to a nonagenarian of limited movement.
Of course, with banks losing the easy-peasy focus on housing now that that bubble, and its accessory foam, has been punctured, high-level executives might direct some thinking towards putting money into activities that promote productivity, so generate good returns for the . . . . Yeah, nah - we, and our mouthpieces in Murdoch media, have a year or so to promote a Coalition/PHONY combination to the Treasury benches, that will reinflate that bubble.
Chadwick, you are on the balls of Gaslighting Groany. Keep up the good work... "Vast loss of productivity in the energy sector’ - again, without much detail".
DeleteThe elided by Groany detail is bolded.
"Energy productivity, gas consumption and employment: trends in the Australian economy 2008-09 to 2018-19
Mon, 2 Nov 2020
"This paper uses the most recent update of Australian Energy Statistics to examine two separate though related questions. First, how is Australia’s National Energy Productivity Plan, launched in 2015, progressing?
"It finds that primary energy productivity has increased, but the increase is almost entirely attributable to the shift from fossil fuel to renewable generation of electricity, meaning that final energy productivity has been almost static. However, factorisation analysis shows that lack of progress in final energy productivity is mostly caused by recent rapid growth in the very energy intensive production for export of large volumes of LNG.
[Two steps forward, LNG back]
"Modest but non-negligible energy productivity improvements have been achieved in most other sectors of the economy.
The second question is whether, as the government proposes, increased supply and consumption of gas will boost employment and revive the economy. The paper concludes that it will not, because almost all employment is found and almost all GDP is created in sectors of the economy which use relatively very little gas.
Three sectors of manufacturing use about two thirds of total commercial gas consumption in Australia (excluding electricity generation and the LNG industry), but employ less than 2 per cent of the workforce and contribute about 3 per cent of GDP. In fact, most of this two thirds is used at just fourteen large industrial sites spread across Australia."
https://crawford.anu.edu.au/ccep/content-centre/research/energy-productivity-gas-consumption-and-employment-trends-australian
As you say Chadwick "Yeah, nah - we, and our mouthpieces in Murdoch media, have a year or so to promote a Coalition/PHONY combination to the Treasury benches, that will reinflate that bubble."
Correct.
But. But? BUT!
Delete(GTS) Groany & the Scribbles RUN ON GAS!
But! They get high on their own supply, as seen above. GTS neither increase productivity or GDP.
The Flagshit is a steam shit, still running on COAL-ition, backed up by & Peak Gina Gas.
What's that very famous bit of Froggy wisdom ?
DeleteAh yes: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Another Groaning today Chadders but so minor it likely will leave you struggling to say anything ...
DeleteI need some good news after Groany!
ReplyDelete"The Amazonian Community That Beat Big Oil Is Sharing Its Secrets
... "Sarayaku did not reject development, he said. The community wants better water systems, communications, health care and other modern conveniences. But development could not mean accepting someone else’s definition of progress.
“People say development means a road, an oil company or a mining company,” he said. “They call deforestation and extraction development.”
Sarayaku people imagine something different: following the principles of the Living Forest declaration and Sumak Kawsay. Improving life without destroying the forest that makes life possible. The community’s minga system—collective work done for the benefit of the community—is one expression of that. Every two months, people work together to clear and maintain the trails. The work is both practical and a way of maintaining the bonds that hold the community together.
Sarayaku’s people do not want to replicate the cities beyond their borders, where houses have gathered along roads and settlements gradually replace the forest.
“We want our own way of living,” José said.
This is how Sarayaku measures wealth and happiness, he said: abundant forests, clean rivers, fertile land, thriving wildlife, a united community and healthy, strong people.
The early morning sun now streamed through slivers of canopy. José lifted his gourd again.
The greatest threat to the people of midday, he said, was not only the companies that came for the oil or minerals. It was the philosophy that they had to become someone else in order to progress.
Alternative Societies Already Exist
...
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/11/the-amazonian-community-that-beat-big-oil-is-sharing-its-secrets.html
Original at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01112026/how-sarayaku-people-beat-big-oil/
Gotta love Cory Doctorow... "great-turnbulls-ghost", Yes, top hat man!
ReplyDelete"by amassing these vast, flaming storehouses of oily rags.
Why wouldn't Equifax reoffend? Our policymakers keep demanding lessprivacy, not more, and their indifference to the consequences is (almost) comical.
Take Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian Prime Minister who uttered what remains, without a doubt, the single stupidest thing anyone anywhere has eversaid about tech policy. Like many of his peers before, during, and since his reign, Turnbull had been trying to outlaw working encryption, insisting that every device have a Bill Clinton-esque back-door for the purpose of spying on "bad guys." When told that the laws of mathematics dictated that any measure that let Australia's cops spy on "bad guys" would also let bad guys spy on Australians, Turnbull replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140747-laws-of-mathematics-dont-apply-here-says-australian-pm/
We could laugh Turnbull off…if he was an outlier. But while Turnbull had the world's stupidest rejoinder to the scientifically irrefutable fact that banning encryption will let bad guys hack everything, he was hardly alone in wanting to ban encryption. Banning encryption is current policy in Canada:
...
https://pluralistic.net/2026/11/02/agony-verification/#great-turnbulls-ghost