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 ...

No reptile stew today!

 

The pond regrets to advise that it is currently offline and so there will be no succulent reptile stew served today.

The pond’s router has died, a sudden and unexpected death, in the spirit of Miss Lindsey.

This post is being composed by a digital thumb hooked up to digital tar, which is to say iPhone hooked up to iPad, which is like trying to sound sensible while undergoing a root canal.

The pond’s router hopes that correspondents can find some other form of reptile gruel, while it heads off to find a replacement router, with a deep, seething resentment of Apple products bubbling away like mad Kind Donald’s demented brain.

In which the pond tastes all sorts of forbidden reptile fruit, but settles for ancient Troy doing Nige and Dame Groan doing those damned furrriners ...

 

There is no long absent lord offering sensible and thoughtful hope, because She would have taken mad King Donald together with his acolyte Miss Lindsey, and spared Sam Neill a little longer.

It's worth writing about what Neill gave the world, not so much Miss Lindsey, though the pond was irritated that it took two reptiles, Caroline Overington and Bianca Farmakis, to compose a tribute to Neill, Sam Neill, Jurassic Park actor and writer, dies aged 78, and yet these dimwits managed to omit any mention of one of his best roles, the short order chef in Death in Brunswick, where he and his Kiwi comedy mate John Clarke ran riot in a graveyard.

Always those bloody dinosaurs instead of Neill's rich sense of humour, which he shared with Clarke

Meanwhile, the madness of King Donald continues apace, with the latest example his Mafia type muscle move to impose a levy of 20% on goods moving through the Strait, thereby outdoing the mad Mullahs.

Sadly the reptiles of Oz don't have the bromancer around to tackle the latest sign of dementia.

With the greatest respect to Clive, he's simply not up to the job, as he offered the hive mind a statement of the bleeding obvious ...

Airstrikes alone will not deliver US victory in Mid-East

Iran still retains a range of asymmetric response options even as its conventional forces face attrition.
By Clive Williams

Not only did Clive offer a modest 3 minute read - where's "Ned" when he's needed? - he attempted to sound sensible, which is simply not playing the hive mind game...

Even worse, he was a little late to the party:

At the heart of the current flare-up lies a longstanding legal and strategic dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has asserted particular security interests in the waterway and has used threats of access restrictions as a means of exerting pressure. The US and most maritime nations maintain the strait is subject to international rules guaranteeing unimpeded transit passage.
These divergent interpretations complicate any resolution.

It turned out that they're not divergent at all, what with mad King Donald being at one with the mad Mullahs on the need to impose a surcharge, the only divergence being on who will collect the loot ...

The rest of Clive is in the intermittent archive, but for a moment the pond could have sworn it was reading a piece scribbled for the both siderist NY Times ...

How about this?

The US has framed its operations as legitimate self-defence and a necessary step to protect freedom of navigation and civilian mariners. US officials argue Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels posed a direct threat to international maritime security.
Iran, by contrast, portrays its actions as legitimate responses to ongoing US and Israeli military pressure, economic sanctions and earlier strikes that damaged Iranian territory and infrastructure.

Yes, on the one hand, but on the other hand, and Clive carried on like this to his conclusion ...

...US strikes have concentrated on military assets linked to threats against shipping. American statements emphasise precision targeting and efforts to limit civilian harm. Iranian authorities have reported casualties and damage extending beyond purely military sites, although comprehensive independent assessments remain limited at this stage.
It is too early to evaluate the military effectiveness of the US strikes. They are likely to impose meaningful costs on Iranian naval and missile capabilities and may temporarily constrain further attacks on shipping. But past experience in the region indicates that airstrikes alone seldom resolve deeper political and security grievances. Iran retains a range of asymmetric response options, including proxy operations, cyber activities and renewed maritime harassment, even as its conventional forces face attrition.
For the US and its partners, prolonged military engagement also entails risks. Operations consume resources, heighten the chances of miscalculation and contribute to oil market volatility. Donald Trump has paired warnings of stronger action with suggestions that negotiations remain possible. Proponents view this as effective coercive diplomacy; critics argue it creates uncertainty about US objectives and risks undermining diplomatic credibility.
The most probable short-term trajectory is continued managed confrontation rather than outright victory or comprehensive peace. Iran is unlikely to extract major concessions solely through military pressure. The US and its allies can maintain pressure through strikes and sanctions but face practical and political limits.
Regional actors such as Gulf States and Israel continue to prioritise containment, while external powers including Russia and China seek regional influence through varying degrees of engagement with Tehran. The conflict exemplifies a security dilemma. Defensive measures by one side are often perceived as aggression by the other, perpetuating cycles of retaliation. US strikes may safeguard immediate interests but risk entrenching hostility. Iranian disruption may signal resolve but invites further isolation.
Neither side appears intent on a full-scale regional war. Yet the assumption that escalation can remain controlled has repeatedly proved dangerous. Once military action begins, domestic pressures, miscalculation and unintended consequences can rapidly narrow the space for diplomacy.
Stability in the Gulf cannot rest on military force alone. It will require credible mechanisms for maritime security, renewed diplomatic channels and progress on the longstanding disputes surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities, regional role and relationship with the US. Until those issues are addressed, each round of strikes and counterstrikes risks becoming the prelude to the next.
Clive Williams is a former defence intelligence officer.

The reptiles of Oz will miss the bromancer ... 

He knows how to celebrate the events of the day, with hopes of even bigger events to follow ...

That left ancient Troy, finally catching up with events in the UK ...

The header: Farage v Count Binface: the clash that perfectly sums up British politics; The intergalactic space warrior is now the anti-establishment candidate, not Nigel Farage.

The caption for the comedy duo, Count Binface and Nigel Farage

Ancient Troy spent a bigly four minutes on Nige and the bin man, though really he had nothing to say that hadn't been said by the cracking Crace in some fair style, in forays such as What a week for Daddy Nige and his dysfunctional Reform family:

...could it be that Nige is just the Messiah. We know he’s no Old Testament prophet because he doesn’t believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Otherwise he wouldn’t have complained about Sky News identifying one of his properties, having himself named hotels accommodating asylum seekers to his followers. Just for their information, naturally. The last thing he would want is for his supporters to protest outside.
Rather, Nige is the New Testament real deal. A man of compassion and tolerance. Someone sent down to Earth to fight for the poor and the oppressed. To round up the sinners who have erred and strayed from God’s ways like lost sheep.
Take Thursday’s Daily Mail, in which he said he was only practising “Christian forgiveness” in taking handouts from George Cottrell. He had looked deep into Posh George’s soul and seen someone who truly repented of offering to launder money for drug dealers. The fact that Posh was a multimillionaire prepared to bankroll Nige’s lifestyle never crossed his mind.

But the pond can Tootle only so much, and must deal its ancient Troy hand ...

Nothing could more perfectly sum up the state of British politics than the forthcoming by-election between far-right populist politician Nigel Farage and the satirical Count Binface – a comedic candidate who has contested previous elections with a garbage bin shaped helmet – in the seaside seat of Clacton, northeast of London.
Reform UK leader Farage has been dogged by parliamentary investigations into receiving a “gift” of £5m ($9.7m) from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne, other gifts from convicted fraudster George Cottrell and not fully declaring property interests. He attacked The Times and The Sunday Times, and other media, for their investigations.
Rather than face the scrutiny that all MPs must and respond to these allegations, Farage resigned as an MP, insisting he’d done “nothing wrong”, and set up a phony standard: if re-elected that should be the end of the matter. It is straight from the Donald Trump playbook.
A by-election gives voters a chance to “stick two fingers up to the establishment”, Farage claims. But the stunt has backfired with his main opponent being a parody candidate wearing a garbage bin on his head. The Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Restore Britain parties have decided not to contest the August 13 by-election.
The contest between Farage and Binface has gripped British politics. It is more serious than it looks. Binface has been interviewed by leading political journalists. The odds of Binface winning Clacton have been slashed and his support is growing in the polls.

At least ancient Troy is talking up the bin man's chances, even if the reptiles insisted on showing Nige playing at being dinkum, Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage drinks a pint of beer, 2024. Picture: Carl Court / Getty Images

Such a faux, filthy rich, always smirking creep...

And so to wild hopes that the bin man might just have the chops to do it...

Farage, the architect of Brexit, is widely disliked and he didn’t win a majority of votes in the seat when elected two years ago. Labourites, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would be delighted if Farage is defeated. Andy Burnham, likely the next Labour prime minister, said: “Count Binface, you are carrying the hopes of the nation.” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ridiculed Farage’s claim that it is the people versus the establishment. “Well, if he’s the establishment here, then in this context Binface may be the people,” she said.
Comedian, writer and broadcaster Jon Harvey is the creator of Count Binface, who claims to be an intergalactic space warrior from planet Sigma IX who came to Earth in 2017. He wears a silver space suit with cape and garbage bin head. It sounds preposterous and utterly ridiculous, which it is, but it is also very funny and Binface is getting more people interested in politics.
This will be the seventh electoral contest for the space warrior. He stood in the December 2019 and July 2024 general elections, two by-elections and the May 2021 and May 2024 London mayoral elections. He won more than 24,000 votes in each mayoral contest. He stood beside victors Boris Johnson and Burnham on election night as the results were announced and shook their hands.
Binface is touching a chord with voters who believe politicians, including Farage, have not delivered what they promised. He exists as a kind of protest vote. A pox on their houses candidate. Voting for Binface is not a wasted vote but a democratic right to turn up and cast a ballot in protest against the system.
Binface is one in a long history of satirical candidates contesting British elections. He does indeed have policies, albeit in the British comedic style of Monty Python, Blackadder and The Young Ones.

The reptiles interrupted with a snap of Andy, whom the pond's partner finds attractive because he's something of a thugby league man, Andy Burnham addresses supporters outside the Labour party campaign office in Makerfield. Picture: Oli Scarff / AFP

On with the bin man's sensible policies and promises ...

He wants to nationalise singer Adele, rename London Bridge after actor-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, ban loud snacks from theatres and promises to build at least one affordable house.

Say what, at last the pond could go back to the movies, currently filled with younglings scoffing greasy salted popcorn as loudly as their choppers can manage? 

But wait, there's much more ...

He wants to introduce a maximum voting age of 80, nationalise model railways, abolish video assistant referees in football, make cyclists who ignore road rules ride only unicycles, require people who use their speakerphones on public transport to watch the movie Cats every day for a year or be conscripted, and force water service managers to swim in rivers they pollute.
There is more: Provide free parking for electric vehicles between Vine Street and the Strand as it is in Monopoly; cap the price of a Flake ice-cream at 99p, a croissant at £1 and a Wigan kebab at £2; abolish auto renewal of online subscriptions; and move the hand dryer in the men’s toilet at the Crown & Treaty pub in Uxbridge to a more convenient location.
Farage’s Reform UK has been leading national polls. But with the electorate split, his party manages to attract only about 25 per cent nationwide support. Most Britons dislike Farage (62 per cent) and blame him for the post-Brexit mess. A recent YouGov poll found 73 per cent of Britons thought Farage was “sleazy” while 64 per cent said he was “untrustworthy” and 60 per cent said he had not been honest about his finances.

Say what, where's the bromancer when he's needed? What's this talk of a post-Brexit mess? That's not how the bromancer, and so the pond, remember it ...

It was a bloody triumph of reason ...

Brexit: Britons’ triumph of democratic reasoning
What a magnificent triumph of ­determined, peaceful, reasoned democracy the British people have pulled off.

That's more like it.

Of course the Brits could prosper outside the EU, and haven't they been doing a splendid job of prospering? Who has prospered more than Nige himself?

The pond reckons the bromancer's the lizard Oz's equivalent of the bin man, as the reptiles slipped in another snap of a has been, Keir Starmer. Picture: Carlos Jasso / Getty Images

And so to a final gobbet starring loser Nige, too clever for his obvious stupidity ...

Asked on radio last week what he offered the voters of Clacton, Binface said: “Well, I’m not Nigel Farage.”
Indeed. A decade ago, a majority of the voters in Clacton supported Brexit. But leaving the EU has had a significant adverse economic impact and many of the promised benefits, such as £350m a week more for the National Health Service, have not materialised. After David Cameron, five prime ministers have come and gone since Brexit – Theresa May (2016-19), Johnson (2019-22), Liz Truss (2022), Rishi Sunak (2022-24) and Keir Starmer (2024-26) – and next week it is likely Burnham will be the sixth to walk through the black door of 10 Downing Street.
The irony for Farage is that he too could be a casualty of this period of instability in British politics. An Ipsos poll found that more Britons preferred Binface to win Clacton than Farage. That is perhaps an unlikely outcome, but it shows how quickly politics can change. The intergalactic space warrior is now the anti-establishment candidate, not Farage.

On the upside, going with ancient Troy meant the pond could avoid yet another reptile rant about the budget ...

EXCLUSIVE
First-home buyers fall foul of Labor ‘fix’ as investors move in
Investors invade first-home buyer estates to avoid Labor tax penalty
Landlords are muscling into the one market where young Australians held the upper hand to avoid a $700 weekly penalty triggered by the budget tax changes.
By Anthony Keane and Noah Yim

The pond wanted to keep its powder dry. 

Surely Dame Groan would want to have a word, and it wouldn't be the fault of those muscly landlords, it'd be the doings of those damned, deeply wicked furrriners ...

And the pond could duck and weave around a shocking, shameful attempt to do down Tamworth's pride and joy ... (such is its eternal, ineradicable shame) ...

EXCLUSIVE
Joyce defection was ‘disgusting and his foibles will become clear’
In an extensive interview on how to manage One Nation, National Party federal president Andrew Fraser launches a blistering attack against Barnaby Joyce and his ‘disgusting’ defection.
By Rosie Lewis

The problem was that in his attack, this variant Fraser thought the man who had very little to be proud of had been given a raw deal ...

Funny that, Barners has been like that all along, as any Tamworth magpie would know, but it was only when he switched thugby league teams that the stench suddenly appeared ...

Never mind, the pond kept ducking ...

Australia’s anti-corruption commissions have gone too far
Who needs an anti-corruption commission to investigate scandals when they can create their own?
By Scott Prasser

It too was just a three minute read, but the pond switched off when it saw that Scott was a Connor Court man ...

...Who needs an anti-corruption commission to investigate scandals when they can create their own?
While these problems have since been addressed, it highlights that it is not easy operationalising these bodies in Westminster systems.
The South Australian ICAC had its powers so reduced in 2021 that its commissioner resigned in protest in 2024, leaving it to be our weakest anti-corruption body and of questionable value.
Some argue anti-corruption commissions serve a useful role and should be strengthened; others believe it has all gone too far and their collective cost and undermining of civil liberties are too great. Instead of strengthening trust in government, their reports and errant behaviour have undermined it. They are a “solution” that too often has become the problem. Nor can these bodies prevent poor politically driven policy decisions, as some naively expected, which are necessarily affected in a democracy by compromise, negotiation and govern­ments necessarily seeking votes.
Australia is the only Westminster democracy with anti-corruption commissions. Perhaps after observing how they have operated in this country, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have wisely eschewed their adoption.
Scott Prasser co-edited Australia’s Anti-Corruption Commissions: Strengthening Trust? (Connor Court, 2026).

Roll on Nige and his five million and various other crony gifts, Scott's got your back...

You know how to show off the Westminster system right proper, don't you Nige? 

All that glitters can be gold, and you're at one with your rorting, looting, epically grifting mate across the waters.

Let no one and no body, nor any one interested in dealing with corruption, get in the way of magpies with an eye on the glittering main prize ...

By golly, banana republics beckon for Scottie and his mates.

But wait, there's another important benefit in giving Scottie and his mates short shrift.

By clearing the decks, the pond created space for its most important Tuesday mission ... Dame Groan!

It's true that the old biddy was just blathering on about that aforementioned EXCLUSIVE, but the pond always needs the ancient duck to explain how we'll all be rooned long before Xmas arrives ...

The header: Labor’s housing ‘fix’ a case of bad policy made even worse; When the minister talks about fixing housing, what she should be saying is we’re going to stop meddling in the market.

The caption for that craftily uncredited collage, which really did make it seem that Clare and Jimbo were ruining a classic development by getting in the way: Housing Minister Clare O'Neil and Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

The aged Dame was clearly feeling her oats, because this day she embarked on an epic five minute groan ...

In the last week of parliament before the long winter break, Anthony Albanese took to quoting random regional real estate agents to tell us how well the housing market was going for first-home owners. Let’s face it, it was like quoting Al Capone on compliance with the law.
Discomfited by the information emerging about the slowing housing market – particularly falling house prices – the Albanese government is now keen to distance itself from responsibility for any adverse outcomes. You know the sort of thing: nothing to do with us, other factors beyond our control such as the Reserve Bank hiking interest rates.
This is an important topic because dwellings are the single largest source of household wealth by a country mile. Estimated at about $13 trillion, the wealth tied up in housing is greater than the combined wealth tied up in superannuation, shares and commercial property.
According to Housing Minister Clare O’Neil: “We’ve got a broken housing market. That’s why we are making real change for Australians.” It clearly doesn’t occur to her that government action – not just federal but also state and local – is the main culprit of our broken housing market.
It’s worth running through some of the government actions that have brought the housing market to its knees with a massive loss of affordability coupled with lower housing.
Housing prices as a ratio of household disposable income are currently one-third higher than they were pre-Covid.

Quick, a snap of the fiend who set the Groaner off, Anthony Albanese tours a future social and affordable housing development site in Belconnen, Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Affordable housing? Not on Dame Groan's watch ...

The big picture is that every demand-side intervention is essentially counter-productive in helping people into home ownership. In the context of inflexible supply, all these policies do is drive up demand and therefore prices at certain price points. Think of the 5 per cent deposit scheme, the shared equity program, various state first-home buyer grants, concessions on stamp duties, and the list goes on.
While the recipients of these supports may regard themselves as lucky, they come at a cost to others in the housing market as well as to taxpayers. The net effect is almost certainly negative, but governments are always keen to be seen to be doing something – in this case, assisting first-home owners get into the market
Take the 5 per cent deposit scheme as an example. First-time home buyers can purchase a property with a 5 per cent deposit – some buyers have access to a lower figure – with the government picking up the tab for the lenders mortgage insurance. Buyers can bump up their borrowing, with the banks happy to play along knowing the government will meet any shortfall in the event of default.
The scheme was first introduced by the Morrison government but was targeted at those with the lowest incomes and at relatively low property prices. The Albanese government enlarged the scope of the scheme by removing the income limits, as well as increasing the locational maximum price points. It’s possible to buy a dwelling valued at up to $1.5m in parts of Sydney, for example. Those with permanent residence as well as Australian citizens are now eligible.
The scheme has proven very popular, even among those who could manage to assemble the normal 20 per cent deposit. More than 300,000 participants have taken out a loan under the scheme since 2020. It’s estimated 50,000 permanent residents are among the participants.
Unsurprisingly, the most recent cohort of participants has the highest incomes, even though it is the least in need.

Ah, the suffering of the rich, which thanks to her time at Santos, the Groaner knows all about, as the reptiles slipped in an AV distraction featuring another poor suffering reptile, the indigent dog botherer himself (still no Faux Noise rebrand?): Sky News host Chris Kenny says reports today highlight that rents in Sydney have skyrocketed over the past three months. Mr Kenny said median rents jumped by more than six per cent over that period. “There are many factors at play here, of course, but it’s hardly a surprise that you get this after increasing taxes on housing investment.”

Nothing like black rooftops to make the best of a Sydney summer.

Dame Groan stayed on the case.

So, what should be made of this scheme?
The first point to note is absent any growth in the supply of dwellings priced around the allowable price points, one clear effect is to increase the price of dwellings. The data confirms this effect.
The second point is the exposure this type of scheme creates for both the mortgage holders and the taxpayer. The reality is that a 95 per cent loan can be difficult to service and depends on circumstances not changing in a negative way. The loss of a job, for instance, could easily send a new homeowner to the wall given the lack of any cushion.
On the face of it, these loans have many similarities with the subprime mortgages that were being written at an alarming speed in the US leading up to the global financial crisis. It doesn’t bear thinking what taxpayers could be up for in the event of widespread default by participants in the 5 per cent scheme.
It’s not only the federal government that insists on meddling with the housing market. State governments have their own schemes, but the hypocrisy of their involvement is breathtaking.
As financial commentator Noel Whittaker has noted: “In 1976, taxes, fees and regulatory charges made up less than 10 per cent of the cost of a new house-and-land package. Today, depending on where you live, governments are taking somewhere between one-third and one-half of the total cost.”
It’s a case of give with one hand – first-home owner grants, concessions on stamp duty – while taking with the other in the form of exorbitant cost imposts on new builds. If O’Neil were serious about fixing the housing market, this would be a good place to start.
The fact is the combination of imposts and rapidly escalating construction costs spurred by the Labor government’s pro-union policies has increasingly priced more people out of the market for new dwellings.

Of course it's the unions, it almost goes without saying, but you can rely on the Groaner to say it.

You can also rely on Sydney developers to put together magnificent buildings which will last at least twenty years, with these environmentally sensitive projects featuring only barebones charges and incredibly modest fees, and what would Clare know about that? Clare O’Neil during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Shed a tear for Sydney developers along with Dame Groan ... she's got a slightly used harbour bridge to sell you ..

It is now at the point that high-rise apartments in many suburbs are unaffordable for the average new homeowner. In turn, more developers are finding the economics of new apartment blocks simply don’t add up.

Oh and spare a thought for how furriners are ruining everything, as they always do in Dame Groan's world ...

Did I mention the role that immigration has played in messing up the housing market?

What? No never, you never ever mention how those bloody furriners are making a mess of the entire country.

Please, mention it for the umpteenth, or is that the squillionth time, explaining how we'll all be rooned ...

For most of its time in office, the Albanese government has denied this link. Nothing to see, evidently – just a post-Covid surge followed by much lower net migration figures around 225,000 eventually. (The latest figure was just over 300,000.)
At last, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has conceded “we need to keep doing what we can to increase housing supply, and we need to make sure migration is tailored to what we can do there”. It has taken four years to get to this point.
Why the Treasurer would suddenly decide to up-end the taxation arrangements that applied to housing – negative gearing, capital gains tax, banning self-managed superannuation funds from buying leveraged property – when it was plain as day that supply was overwhelmingly the main game is anyone’s guess.
When O’Neil talks about fixing the housing market, what she should be saying is we are going to cease meddling in the market and see where that leads.
This is the preferred route to allow the market to operate in the context of much lower imposts on construction and much lower migrant intakes.
The budget measures are high risk and there is a real possibility the housing market will crash, at least in certain parts of the country. This would be a bad outcome in both political and policy terms.

Why on earth did the old groaner feel the need to equivocate. What's this blather about a "real possibility", and the down sizing to "certain parts of the country", and that speculative framing of a conditional future, "this would be"?

Dammit, we'll all be rooned by Xmas! No wouda or couda about it.

And there you have it, the pond has done its time with Dame Groan and can take a rest, courtesy Wilcox and the immortal Rowe, both remembering Miss Lindsey in their own way ...

It's a conspiracy, dammit, a fine and noble suck struck down in his prime ...

In which the pond forgoes Major Mitchell, but offers Lord Downer in war monger mode, with Cameron not far behind, a smattering of "Ned", and the thoughts of the flood water-whispering Caterist ...

 

What a relief.

After endless tedious excursions into Major Mitchell's Zionist posts for the Australian Daily Zionist News, at last the pond found a reason not to exhibit him to devoted herpetologists.

Trans issues test media’s blind spot
Mainstream left-leaning media has failed to accurately report transgender issues in women’s sport and gender medicine, damaging public trust.
By Chris Mitchell
Columnist

Sorry, but the pond refuses to indulge the reptiles in transphobic mode. It gets the pond's TG friends agitated, and in any case the pond isn't much interested in the reptiles using TG people as a convenient distraction, down there with the Salem witch trials.

If you want an alternative read, you can always try Parker Molloy, whether on specific related trans topics, Reasonable Concerns, The wedge on trans people moved exactly where we said it would. The people who gave it cover are still quiet. 

Or more generally, Go Ahead, Try and Tune Him Out, Nine years ago, The Onion wrote a fake Trump editorial about infecting every corner of your daily life. He’s since gotten a lot better at it.

But don't despair, the pond still has some reptile readings of relevant note, what with the war that mad King Donald won on the first day, and subsequently used to obliterate the Iranian over and over again - so much bigly obliteration - back for yet more obliteration, and mad King Donald, and better still, Lord Downer on a full war footing...

The header: Memo Trump: Drop the jaw-jaw and turn up heat on IRCG; Trump’s trouble is he talks too much. His messages are sometimes contradictory and they are replete with exaggeration.
The caption: US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth step off Air Force One upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base. Picture: AFP

It was stunning stuff, with Lord Downer determined to put minor acolytes like Pete Kegsbreath and mad King Donald in his place.

His Lordship started by immediately ruling out King Donald...

Great leaders are readers. In particular, they have a deep understanding of history and bury themselves in the historical biographies of leaders who have gone before them. President Donald Trump should take a bit of time off golf and plough through the biographies of people such as Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Churchill, Thatcher and even Julius Caesar.

Even Julius Caesar? Big Julie is just an "even"?

Never mind, the real comedy was in inviting mad King Donald to do a little reading ...

The President Who Doesn’t Read
Trump’s allergy to the written word and his reliance on oral communication have proven liabilities in office.
By David A. Graham (*intermittent archive link)

Inter alia ...

Confronted by the reality that mad King Donald can never - definitionally - be a great reader or therefore a great leader, not even any of that additional recommended Atlantic reading, the ineffably stupid Lord Downer ploughed on ....

He will find that in wartime those leaders had some common characteristics. First, they had no fear. They knew that war was a bloody business and would cost lives. They were prepared for those sacrifices because they were unequivocal in their judgment that to wage war, brutal as it may be, was better than the alternatives. And their courage was exemplified by their calmness and sangfroid during reverses.
Second, they defined their wartime objectives not just with crystal clarity but with inspirational appeals to a public they well understood. To use a phrase, they knew how to ring the chimes in the hearts of the people. Indeed, by defining so crisply their objectives, they inspired the loyalty and support of most of the public. They all knew the loyalty and support of their populations was axiomatic in wartime.

How did the pond know that Lord Downer was in full mad war monger mode? By way of his splendid references, luckily requiring cheap snaps from the archives...Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill.

Why there might even be the need to do a barbershop Harry and nuke them back to the stone age, and what an inspiration for Vlad the Sociopath that would be ...

Third, successful wartime leaders have shown a streak of ruthlessness in pursuit of victory. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to the bombing of Germany, which today is criticised by some as excessive and unnecessary. Truman agreed to the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you go back earlier, then people such as Napoleon, Horatio Nelson and Margaret Thatcher could be brutal in their ruthlessness.

If you go back earlier? Maggie was in action around the same time as Napoleon and Horatio? Do go on...

As Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps again closed the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, Trump is clearly struggling in the war against the Iranian theocracy to achieve his objectives because he fails to meet some of these criteria. He certainly doesn’t lack courage. It was a courageous decision to set aside decades of equivocation and humiliation of Israel and the West to launch a war against Iran.
Equivocation and so-called diplomacy – which is a polite way of saying endless and meaningless talks with an ideologically driven extremist regime – have achieved nothing, as the recent closure of the Strait proves.
Iranian surrogates have continually attacked Israel. They’ve destroyed the stability of that once beautiful country, Lebanon. They’ve fomented civil war in Syria and near civil war in Iraq. They’ve murdered thousands of Americans. And here was an evil regime trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Imagine what such an ideologically driven extremist regime would do if it could strike its neighbours and near neighbours with such devastating force. For the Israelis, it risks another Holocaust.
This was always going to lead to war. War by the West against Iran’s regime was inevitable. American president after American president has not been prepared to do much about this. To his credit, Trump has had the courage to take on the Iranian regime. But he has so far not met the test of successful war leadership.

The reptiles flung in a snap to remind everyone that there was simply too much peace, and too much swimming ...Children wade in the water with cargo ships at anchor in the background at the Strait of Hormuz. Picture: ISNA

Lord Downer continued his brave chiding of mad King Donald ...

First and foremost, he has been unclear in articulating his war aims. He shouldn’t be. He should make it clear that he will destroy Iran’s capacity to arm and support proxy groups throughout the Middle East, destroy its capacity to project power, particularly in the Middle East, and to terminate forever its nuclear weapons program.
Iran is accountable for the grotesque attacks on Israelis by Hamas, triggering the Gaza war, which is just the latest of many. It is responsible for Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel, leading to the evacuation of much of the population in that part of the country. So, Trump should make it clear that this should be brought to an end.
He has been clear in wanting to end any semblance of a nuclear weapons program by Iran. He should also make it clear that the mighty US military will force open the Strait of Hormuz and maintain a blockade of Iranian ports until the regime complies with US demands.
The President has boasted that the US military has destroyed Iran’s air defences, most of its navy, its air force, and its missile and drone production facilities. He needs to make sure the job is properly done.
The trouble with Trump’s style is that he talks too much. His messages are sometimes contradictory and they are replete with exaggeration. After a while, these messages lose their potency. What is more, they are not inspirational. Trump has failed to articulate clearly enough his war aims, and he has not done so in a way that inspires the American people.
Americans, on the whole, are confused as to why the war is taking place at all. They shouldn’t be. It’s the responsibility of Trump to explain it simply and clearly to them, and in an inspirational and patriotic way.

So much dreaming, and while His Lordship dreamed on, the reptiles slipped in a snap of a villain, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has claimed Tehran would have sole authority over the Strait of Hormuz. Picture: AFP

Then there was a last bout of inspirational and patriotic dreaming ...

Then there’s the quality of, if you can call it that, ruthlessness. Trump is nervous about the increase in oil prices caused by the Iranians’ capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as they did again at the weekend. Yet, if he were more ruthless, he would put up with that disadvantage in the short term and the controversy it would cause, ensuring the problem was solved by quick and decisive military victory.
Such victory requires the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, not through some unsustainable memorandum of understanding with an extremist regime such as Iran’s, but by the use of military might. Yet again, Trump is clearly reluctant to use ground forces to force that outcome, failing to employ every means necessary to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He has appeared hesitant and has lacked that streak of ruthlessness that characterised great war leaders.
As the US launches new strikes on Iran, it is worth re-emphasising that this is a just and necessary war, but it must be prosecuted with clarity of objectives and ruthless implementation in order to achieve those objectives. Trotting off to Islamabad or Doha for negotiations with a regime such as this will never lead anywhere good; it will only leave the American public, and most of the West, with the view that this was a totally unnecessary, unsuccessful war.
If Trump had read more and posted on Truth Social less he’d prosecute the war with Iran with courage, inspire his public and be ruthless in dealing with the ghastly Iranian regime. Still, having said that, it’s in the interests of a safer world that America wins.

Sure, in much the same way as America had stunning victories in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and hasn't that last one improved the lives of Afghani women, and no doubt this current effort will benefit Iranian citizens wanting to see the end of an oppressive regime in much the same way.

Put it another way ...

Trust Lord Downer as an expert war monger? Sure can ...

The pond doesn't mean to play down the offerings of other reptiles.

Cameron was also on a war footing ...

Commentary by Cameron Stewart
Trump accepts reality: Iranian radicals aren’t interested in peace (that's an intermittent archive link)
The US President has very few cards he can play. He can’t be seen to accept Iran’s outrageous and blatant disregard of the Memorandum of Understanding. He has to act.

The pond means no disrespect to Cameron, but sending him to the intermittent archives seemed more than enough ...especially as the AI bots that scrape the site for content wouldn't mind...

Go on bots, have a scrape of this too ...

Cameron ended up sounding - in a tentative, most unlike Lord Downer sort of way - like a reluctant boots on the grounds man, what with the recent intermittent bombing campaign clearly not working ...

This might prevent Iranian attacks on Gulf States and on US troops in the region. But ultimately it is difficult to see how such a ‘holding pattern’ approach will persuade the Iranian regime to surrender its control of the strait, much less persuade it to enter serious talks about its nuclear program.
Increasingly it looks like the US will need to consider a return to all-out conflict if it is to have any chance of persuading Iran to re-open the strait without tolls or other impediments.
There is absolutely no guarantee that the US would succeed in this mission without resorting to ground troops, a move that would risk American casualties in an already unpopular war.
But Trump has very few cards that he can play right now. He can’t be seen to accept Iran’s outrageous and blatant disregard of the Memorandum of Understanding. He has to act.
As the situation escalates, he has only two feasible options left – limited war, or a return to all-out war.

Here's the thing, especially that blather about the MOU ...

If you read the relevant clause carefully, it gave the mad Mullahs just what they wanted ...

5. Upon the signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and de-mining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman, to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussions with other Persian Gulf Littoral States, in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. (the full text at NPR).

In short ...

Such stupid people, continually doing stupid things.

It was a relief to turn to note that the plugging of nattering "Ned's" opus had slipped well down the page ...

EXCLUSIVE by Paul Kelly
‘Political prostitution’: Morrison and Joyce’s net zero battle (another intermittent archive link)
Scott Morrison came within two votes of losing his government over net zero – now Barnaby Joyce has laid bare the extraordinary price paid to keep the Coalition together.

Those wanting to cut and paste "Ned" could head off to the intermittent archive ... because the pond decided to knock over "Ned" and the obligatory snap of the cover of the tome in a few screen caps ...

Bold, brave SloMo confronting the hysteria head on, and that book again?

Carry on plugging with astonishing insights ...

He's finally launched the tome? There might be an end in sight?

It's out tomorrow, and that'll be an end of it?

Dream on herpetology students, there'll never be an end to the "Ned" nightmare of natterings ...

Meanwhile, other nightmare dreamings carry on, thanks to the immortal Rowe...

The pond is glad however that "Ned" was blathering on about net zero, because it was a great segue to the flood waters in quarries whisperer ...

The header: The great green leap backwards is all about carbon credits, not prosperity; The Rushy Lagoon sale shows government has lost sight of the line between the proper role of the state and the role of private investment.

The caption for the snap of moo cows: Tasmanian farmland is ideal for dairy and beef. Picture Chris Kidd

The Caterist was furious ...

Australian taxpayers may or may not be pleased to know they are now part-owners of Tasmania’s largest beef and dairy farm, which is about to become something quite different.
The Collins Dictionary defines a farm as “an area of land on which crops are grown, and animals are kept”. Under its new owners, Rushy Lagoon will become a giant pine plantation and a harvester of carbon credits, with the prospect of a little grazing and wind farming on the side. To understand why Australia’s productivity has stalled, you could do worse than study what happened last week on 22,000 windswept hectares of prime agricultural land 140km northeast of Launceston.
On Wednesday, Jim Chalmers granted foreign investment approval for the sale. It is doubtful whether the $73m investment from the UK’s largest commercial forestry manager, Gresham House, would’ve succeeded on its own.
With a $69m co-investment from the commonwealth’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation, however, private agricultural bidders scarcely stood a chance.
One of Australia’s largest integrated agricultural enterprises – which at its peak was capable of producing around 25 million litres of milk a year and about 2500 tonnes of beef – is now being transformed into a forestry and carbon project underwritten by taxpayers.

Please a snap of Jimbo so that we can spot him in the street ... Jim Chalmers granted foreign investment approval for the sale. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Caterist was in full "won't someone think of the cows?" mode, but still had time for an example of his August wit...

The real question, however, is not whether pine trees and clean-energy certificates are more virtuous than dairy cows. It’s why the government of a country suffering a chronic productivity problem has chosen to use scarce public capital to repurpose one of the country’s most productive agricultural assets into an instrument of government climate policy.
That distinction goes to the heart of Australia’s economic malaise. The country’s problem is not simply too little investment, but that investment is going into all the wrong things.
The CEFC’s portrayal of Rushy Lagoon as a farming enterprise past its prime is disingenuous, to put it politely. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics’ 2026 annual snapshot of the agricultural sector shows farming has bucked the trend of collapsing productivity that is crippling much of the economy.
Productivity growth has been particularly strong in the dairy sector, where deregulation under the Howard government in 2000 drove a move towards larger farms and investment in modern equipment.
ABARE reports that the increase in productivity in Australian dairy has averaged more than 1 per cent for the past 20 years. In northern Tasmania it’s been more than 1.2 per cent. So there is little room to argue that dairying could not have been a going concern at Rushy Lagoon had the new owners been so-minded, capable of supplying the steady demand for milk products in Australia and winning a large share of the international trade currently dominated by New Zealand, Europe and the US.
A fraction of the $69m government investment spent on robotic dairies, smart irrigation systems, processing facilities and AI herd management would’ve produced more food from the same land, in a textbook example of lifting productivity by doing more with less.
Yet the Treasurer’s approach to Australia’s productivity crisis is akin to the Augustinian prayer: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”

Or perhaps Lord, let me decipher the movement of flood waters in quarries, but not just yet.

Others were in the same Caterist pickle ... Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck has raised concerns about the sale of Rushy Lagoon.

It was time for a litany lite, what with all this nonsense about climate change going worse by the day, and heck, everyone knows that the wildfires in Spain don't stay mainly on the plain ...

Chalmers talks the productivity talk with little conviction.
Billions of dollars are being absorbed by transmission lines, Snowy Hydro 2.0, green hydrogen, renewable energy zones and a growing array of government guarantees. Whatever their environmental justification – if indeed there is any – these are capital-intensive projects whose economic returns are likely to be realised only over the very long term, while displacing investment that could lift productivity today.
At its heart, Australia’s productivity crisis reflects a shortage of investment and the chronic misallocation of capital driven by government green policy.
The CEFC’s business case is less compelling than the headlines suggest. It promises 190 green jobs over the 30-year life of the project. That’s an average of little more than six full-time jobs a year.
It claims to be converting “degraded farmland” to a new production model. Yet the solution for overworked pasture is to upgrade the soil using proven techniques such as rotational grazing to maximise ground cover and build organic soil carbon.
Many Australian farmers have transformed previously underperforming pasture through regenerative agriculture, improving drought resilience, reducing run-off, building soil carbon and lowering input costs. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of pasture have been improved through relatively modest investments in fencing and stock water.
Yet the government’s focus is not better agriculture but a different use of the land altogether, replacing an integrated farming enterprise with a plantation forestry and carbon project.
Slowly but surely, Australia’s natural strength of food security is being chiselled away by the great green leap backwards.

The pond has no idea why the reptiles should have seized on this snap of the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way as his preferred profile, but they seem to run it relentlessly ...Angus Taylor should be talking more about the shortage of investment and the chronic misallocation of capital driven by government green policy. Picture: John Gass

At least they didn't have the immortal Rowe, who also captured that feeling of fear ...

And so to a final doom-laden gobbet of terrified dreaming, but not, it goes without saying, from the devastating impact of global warming on land and in the sea ...what with the science of climate change banished from the reptile realm

Historians may come to identify the early 21st century as the years of peak farming in Australia. For two centuries, Australian farming had occupied a world of expanding horizons. Today it is in retreat.
ABS figures show that the area of agricultural land has fallen by around 70 million hectares since 2003. Not all of that reflects the loss of productive farmland, but it does mark a reversal of the long historical trend of expanding agricultural land.
The issue highlighted by Rushy Lagoon is the diversion of scarce taxpayer-backed capital and high-quality agricultural land away from expanding food production and towards other policy objectives. It is fed by the conceit that government is the solution to every problem under an administration intent on centralising and consolidating power in Canberra.
Labor is caught in what Angus Taylor last week called the economic death loop, covering the inefficiencies in government services with billions of dollars of government funds and billions more squandered in green energy policy.
The government has lost sight of the boundary between the proper role of the state and the proper role of private investment, blundering further down the ill-conceived path of green nationalisation by stealth.

He's at one with the beefy boofhead, who once worked at a private consultancy notorious for looting government?

Nationalisation by stealth? Golly gosh, have they been taking lessons from mad King Donald?

Trump knows his Freedom Fuel is kind of socialism, right?
Freedom Fuel? Trump Accounts? TrumpRX? Everything Trump is doing sounds like it would fit into a Democratic Socialist of America pamphlet on how to make socialism work in the United States.

And after all that, who missed Major Mitchell's transphobic bigotry?

Once again mad King Donald had set the pace, and no doubt the world is in a better place ...

Speaking of the Ruskis, they were at it again, saying farewell to Miss Lindsey, making it hard to work out who's worst ...