In which it's all hands on the Catholic deck for the antiChrist, with the bromancer leading the way ...

 

First, a little housekeeping: the pond is heading down to Melbourne for a funeral and so will be off air for some time.

To get there, the pond will be driving by way of an EV down the Hume.

This is an incredibly dangerous, tedious and expensive business and so the pond will likely take some time to recover.

The pond has it on good authority that EVs cost between $60 and $150k - there's not a single car below that price point - and that Telsas can run to $150k, and so the pond has had to take out a huge loan just to be able to do the EV thing.

Second, EVs are notably unsuitable for going on extended trips. Think of them as toys running on clockwork, with the spring pretty useless and likely to give out at crucial times.

The pond also understands that such a lengthy trip might involve getting in a queue to get a charge, and that you can get stuck in the queue for five interminable hours!

As the pond will be doing three charges, it's likely that will add at least fifteen hours to the trip, meaning it probably can't be done in under a day, even by driving all day and night, and ditto the reverse leg will also waste more than a day.

Along the way, the pond will encounter baleful reminders of the complete uselessness of renewables - there are the whale-killing windmills down Goulburn way (how the beefy boofhead failed in his mission!) and the solar arrays roadside in rural Victoria. 

Pray for the pond in best King Donald style, and ruminate on what the world lost when tungsten light bulbs were cruelly tossed aside.

So sadly the rest of this week will be lost, and that means that this week's Our Henry must be rescued from the intermittent archive by dedicated correspondents.

(See below for the pond's expert sources on EVs).

And so to the day's reptile news, and hallelujah, the reptiles have had a come to Jesus moment...

Now the pond only showed that full array of the "news" section to show what the reptiles really thought of the beefy boofhead's talk on immigration.

Instead of following up with a reptile jihad, ye ancient cats and dogs they preferred featuring the absolute freedom of superyachts.

This was a supreme tragedy for the pond because there had been a number of cartoons lined up to greet the beefy boofhead ...

What a terrible waste ... and there was even more wastage to come ...

Alas, all wasted, and it was no better over on the extreme far right, where the beefy boofhead simply couldn't get a run, and early in the morning the bromancer was top of the world, ma ...

The header: For Christ’s sake, Donald Trump, just don’t go there; The US President’s blasphemous social media posts showing himself as Christ have prompted even his Catholic supporters to demand an apology.

The caption? No need for a caption when confronted by a vision of Jesus Christ on earth.

The bromancer could only summon up three minutes of ranting, and his favourite descriptor "nuts".

Is this what FAFO sounds like, bromancer style?

It would be going too far, and surely over-theologising mere personal weirdness, to suggest Donald Trump should call on the services of an exorcist.
But you have to wonder what wicked spirits got into the President’s mind to have him make a personal attack on Pope Leo XIV, and post an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure in biblical clothing, with divine light emanating from his hand as he cures a sick person by laying his hand on his head.
Mr President. Are you nuts?
Trump seems to have a special rule. He bears no personal accountability for the frequently ridiculous and offensive things he says, but anyone who criticises him has committed a mortal sin.
Thus Trump threatens to bomb Iran back to the stone age, to “end” a civilisation, to attack desalination plants that provide drinking water for civilians, then gets upset that the Pope argues for peace instead of war.
Trump has every right to disagree with the Pope on international politics, or anything else, but personal attacks on Leo and blasphemous self-glorifying social media images are nearly deranged.
Those who think Trump is always more clever than his interlocutors, playing 4-D chess, must believe there’s a giant vote of extreme right-wing Christian nationalists who hate the Pope and regard Trump as godlike. However big that vote is, Trump’s sure got it sewn up now.
I’m not sure it’s an election winning cohort.
It’s also the case, incidentally, that Leo, the first pope from the US, is no crypto-communist. When he lived in Chicago, Leo voted in Republican primaries. He has praised the NATO alliance, showing he’s not some lefty who demonises soldiers. He has also said nations have a right to secure borders, to decide who comes into their countries, but that they should treat all people with dignity and care.

The reptiles didn't provide any relief from the rant by way of stills so the pond decided to help out ...

The pond has rarely seen the bromancer so gloomy for such a prolonged stretch ...

What on earth would you expect the Pope to say? Leo is a thoughtful, cautious, sensible, prayerful Pope. Trump seems unable to understand, or even recognise, such a figure.
To descend to mere politics, these latest moves are self-destructive for Trump and Republicans.
Trump has always been a mixed grill. He does and says some good things which other presidents would not be bold enough to do. He also does and says some nearly insane things. And even when he does something defensible, he’s inclined to wreck it with hubris, spite and madness.
His supporters wildly overstate his political strength. Unlike George W. Bush, Trump never won a majority of the popular vote in a US election. At the last election, he won a majority of US Catholics. They are diverse, of course, but most are swing voters because while they tend to be patriotic and moderately socially conservative, they remember their recent working-class roots, they are universal rather than racial in their human outlook and have some concern for social justice and ethical standards.
Trump therefore presents to them the same contradictions as he does to other voters. Trump lost the Catholic vote to Joe Biden in 2020, but won it, fairly narrowly, against Kamala Harris, partly because Biden was such a bad president.
Catholics have not really bought on to the idea, popular in some fairly extreme evangelical circles, that Trump is somehow a specially chosen instrument of divine providence.
A majority of US Catholics now disapprove of Trump and recent incidents will make that much worse. Republicans are likely to suffer in the mid-term elections as a result.
Trump has mobilised even those mainstream figures who have striven to see the good in his administration into straightforward denunciation of him. On social media, he’s like an excited kid lacking parental supervision. He’s badly missing the adults of his first administration.
No mainstream European leader has striven harder to see the good in Trump than Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, yet she condemned his attack.

It was as if something had snapped ... as if he'd done a Melania ...

The bromancer even played the Orbán card, though the reptiles resolutely refused to deploy the acute accent over the á:

Even conservative American Catholics have now denounced Trump. Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire internet ministry, is the most popular Catholic churchman in America, who serves on Trump’s religious liberty commission and has taken flak for supporting him on some issues. He too condemned Trump’s remarks and called on him to apologise to the Pope. This is a very widespread reaction among those Christians who have tried hard to identify with the good in the Trump program.
It’s now damaging to any political figure to have been Trump’s friend. His Vice-President, JD Vance, was in Hungary, wholly inappropriately, campaigning for Trump’s friend Viktor Orban, just before the election.
John O’Sullivan, the shrewdest of analysts, thinks this was a factor in the anti-Orban landslide that ensued.
If this is 4-D chess, Trump should go back to checkers.
And start his nightly prayers with an act of contrition.

Checkers? The cheeky bromancer has taken to bearding the emperor with wit?

And yet the hapless bromancer still thinks that King Donald might be up for an act of contrition, might know how to say a Hail Mary, the Apostle's creed, an Our Father, and a Glory Be, while clutching at his rosary beads?

At least the bro's still delusional ...

What was once the Australian Daily Catholic Times (before becoming the Australian Daily Zionist News and cheering on bigly ethnic cleansing) was so alarmed that it wheeled out a tyke to wonder if it was all the Pope's fault. 

Unlike King Donald, a master of subtlety and nuance, the clunky Pope might well have sounded like an oafish boofhead:

The header: Pope v Trump reveals the complexity of ‘just war’ in our troubled times; Should Pope Leo have been more nuanced in his language on war?

The caption: Pope Leo XIV attends a meeting with the Algerian community in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, in Algiers on Monday. Picture: AFP

Now for that rap over the knuckles for that insensitive Pope addling his response to that extremely sensitive mad King Donald:

Given what has been reported in the media, there is an extra sentence that I would like Pope Leo to have added to his comments on the war in Iran: that he was “addressing all relevant political decision-makers”.
It is easy to see why, without this qualification, he seemed to be referring only to DonaldTrump, given that this war was the US President’s initiative.
Trump’s reactions have been predictably outrageous, though his AI-generated image as a healing religious figure exceeds even his own narcissistic standards.
But perhaps Pope Leo really was singling Trump out for special condemnation? Some commentators have asked why Leo has not likewise criticised leaders of Iran or Hezbollah. Leo has explained that his task is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which commands us to be peacemakers.

It's outrageous that this wretched Pope should single out mad King Donald. What on earth was he thinking? Didn't he realise that the mad king was the recipient of the inaugural FIFA peace prize, and blessed are the cheesemakers?

And remember, this is a just war...

As an earlier pope, John Paul II, said: “War is always a failure of humanity” – a failure to resolve conflicts in a way that respects the life and dignity of all affected. Nonetheless, defensive wars are sometimes a legitimate, necessary evil, even if the failure is chiefly on one side. Leo would not deny this; he is not a pacifist.

The reptiles reminded us of the humble king by turning to a snap:

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday. Picture: AFP

As for all that bloody peace business, why are the bloody popes always yammering on about peace when they should be applauding the likes of Vlad the Sociopath and Benji the greater Israel man in their quest for a piece of this and a piece of that:

It is true that several recent popes have been reluctant to apply traditional “just war” criteria and have sounded more and more pacifist. The criteria were developed centuries ago when wars were waged by standing armies on defined battlefields away from civilians. While the principle that non-combatants must not be directly harmed remains sacrosanct, it is not clear how just war criteria can be applied in contexts where an enemy uses human shields, installs weapons in hospitals and schools, and wages a grey war through terrorist proxies.
Perhaps it is the nature of contemporary warfare that has led popes to simply urge peacemaking in all circumstances.
In Leo’s words, war today is “senseless and inhuman violence” even if it is defensive.
Given the longstanding conduct of Iran and its proxies, it can be argued that Trump’s chosen war against Iran is in truth defensive. Many will dispute this, but a reasoned argument is needed in either case instead of the bald assertions on both sides.
But even if Trump’s war is defensive, there is always a further ethical question to be faced about strategy and means. On this point, those who defend Trump’s pre-emptive action must by now be having their doubts. Was there real­ly no other way of dealing with the Iran threat? Is the chosen and ever evolving strategy proportionate to the noble goal?

Here we must pause to contemplate the wretch himself: the Pope addresses Algerian authorities, members of the civil society, and diplomatic corps at the Djamaa el Djazair Conference Center in Algiers, on Monday. Picture: AP

So to a little more both siderist thinking and cluck clucking and tut-tutting in a way worthy of any pious prelate:

It is worth recalling John Paul II’s condemnation of the war in Iraq and his prediction about its consequences. Likewise, Leo’s longstanding warning that the Middle East faces an “irreparable abyss” has become all too prophetic. In truth, many nations share responsibility for what has occurred – for they have stood by and allowed the violence and instability of the region to fester.
For better or (probably ) worse, the US and Israel have intervened – and both the surrounding nations and other influential nations are discovering too late that they should have taken responsibility sooner. There is a “failure of humanity” in every direction.
Even when a war has a legitimate defensive goal and is pursued by effective and proportionate strategies, this should never be an occasion for religious triumphalism.
Unlike US “secretary for war” Peter Hegseth, a Christian should wage war with profound and humble regret about the loss of innocent life, the destruction of cities and the economic harm to millions more. There is nothing to celebrate here; there will be blood on our hands, and the inevitable post-traumatic stress disorder for those closely involved.
Of course, religious leaders are likely to be criticised whether they do or do not speak out against aggression. When the Dutch Catholic bishops publicly condemned Nazism in 1942 the Gestapo began a new round-up of Jews, especially those such as philosopher and Carmelite nun Edith Stein (and her still Jewish sister), who had become Christians. They died in Auschwitz. Subsequently, The Netherlands had one of the highest mortality rates for Jews in Western Europe.
This does not necessarily mean the bishops should have remained silent; it does highlight the complexity of prudential judgments during wartime.
Pope Leo’s words could be more nuanced, even though he cannot purport to offer an ethical evaluation of the many facets of the current conflict. He is reminding us of the higher Christian perspective within which to view our actions. We must never cease from pursuing peaceful resolutions through dialogue and recognition of our common humanity. And if we must go to war, it should not be with an arrogant confidence in God’s blessing; at best, we can but trust that the defensive actions we need to take will be justified in the circumstances, and that God will bring good out of the evil we do.

And just who was that wanker?

Gerald Gleeson is a deputy vice-chancellor at the Australian Catholic University. He is a former vicar-general of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

He would have served ably in the church in Spain in the times of Franco ...

Glory unto King Donald ... hosannah in the highest ...

And here the pond clapped out though the finest reptile minds were out and about on parade, not least Dame Slap ... but after those sermons it was a bit of a downer for the pond to see that Dame Slap was blathering about "Civilisation":

Federal judge: Civilisation relies on us; don’t let the show down
A lecture from Federal Court judge Ian Jackman shows why character, not identity, should be the focus of citizenship.
By Janet Albrechtsen

The pond personally supervised her placement in the intermittent archive and will only offer this teaser trailer ...as she attempted to do a little bit of Our Henry in her opening flourish:

Given that Dame Slap was borrowing from a judge, one of that despicable bunch that Dame Slap routinely reviles, there was a hint of stolen valour in the way that Dame Slap pillaged his words and recycled them to her own glory.

And spoiler alert, here's the closer, a true measure of the extent of the meaningless blather ...

Say that again:

"Not letting the show down".

I say, gadzooks, wot wot, old chaps, there'll always be an England, must take the Spittie out for an early morning lap ...

...and what a chance to run the pond's favourite primary school poem, running deep with the thoughts of empire, doing the right thing, and conforming to the rigid teachings of Dame Slap ...

Vitaï Lampada

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night —
Ten to make and the match to win —
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, —
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind —
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Wouldn't want to let the show down by not playing the game. Provided the pond can serve by way of keyboard.

And that's about that.

The pond decided to send warrior Liz to the intermittent archive cornfield ...

Ditch the talk, the best defence is innovation
Anything other than the two existential threats in Australia’s defence conversation is pretty much noise.
By Elizabeth Buchanan

The intermittent archive is working this morning, so a teaser trailer is more than enough ...

Splendid stuff, demanding an end to idle, meaningless talk, by bursting into action ... by writing a column for the lizard Oz.

Why that must mean the pond is action central.

Ditto Martin ...

The NDIS was a promise – now it’s a broken market
I hardly recognise what the National Disability Insurance Scheme has become; today the NDIS is hardly meeting anyone’s expectations.
By Martin Laverty

The only thing the pond will note about Martin is that the reptiles unfortunately started his piece with a snap of him looking like a smirking Cheshire cat ...

And so as promised to the source of the ancient reptile EV lore with which the pond began the day.

The pond never watches Sky Noise down under (still no rebrand?) and so was startled when the pond's logarithms unearthed this clip.

It featured dazzling blonde Danica De Giorgio, who is so thick she makes a piece of 4 be 2 look like a toothpick ...

It was titled Sky News Is Still Lying About EVs and Batteries - Here's what they just said... and so it caught the pond's eye.

It came as no surprise that the reptiles lied on Sky Noise - they lie every day in the lizard Oz, and the dog botherer was also featured, so naturally there'd be lies, but even the pond wasn't prepared for this level of inanity.

The pond only mentions it for those opening precious few moments of Sky Noise down under drivel ...

And speaking of war criminals deserving a papal lashing...

In which a gloomy bromancer tries to cope, and cultists should be appeased by a Dame Groan sighting ...

 

The pond's partner has a thing for JD, and while the pond tries to argue against it, the arguments in favour of the couch molester are hard to refute.

JD visits the pope, who promptly dies, and a new liberal - or at least King Donald incurious - pope is installed. A real win for a Catholic convert anxious to see the church get ahead.

JD flies off to Hungary to support Viktor Orbán. He loses, so JC can take credit for saving Europe. What a winner.

JD heads off to the middle east to lead the negotiations, and produces an incredible negotiated settlement that sees both sides blockade the strait, plunging the world into chaos. So much winning.

Is it any wonder that couches want to lie with him, so that their beastly cushions can do the two backs thingie with him?

Others think he deserves our deepest thanks ...

But in the rush to praise JD for his legendary work, let's not forget that each day there's the same sort of incredible winning on display by the reptiles parading in the lizard Oz ...

Come on down bromancer, do the winning thingie for News Corpse and Faux Noise ...

The header: Iran knows it has Donald Trump politically snookered; This will probably be for Trump as damaging as the withdrawal from Kabul was for Joe Biden, possibly much worse.

The caption for the demented mad King: President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at Joint Base Andrews. Picture: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP Photo

Watching the bromancer spend a bigly four minutes or so trying to cope with the doings of the mad King has become a peculiar pleasure for the pond of late.

Sure, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, in no small part due to the role played by the bro's kissing cousins at Faux Noise and to American-owned News Corp, but you must take your pleasures where you find them...

See how he struggles to discern some kind of sanity, marvel at the way he decodes the entrails ...

Australians should prepare for severe disruption for months, for shortages of fuel and other essentials, and the strong chance of recession, as a result of conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
The military logic of what’s unfolding in the strait offers no reason to imagine a return to normal soon. Things will certainly get worse before they get better. They may get much, much worse.
One security insider put it to me this way: “The law of diminishing returns now applies to Trump. He wants to get out as quickly as possible. The law of increasing returns applies to Iran. It wants to keep using its new leverage.”
The case for taking action against Iran was very strong, because of its nuclear, ballistic missile, proxy and terrorist capabilities.
However, the way the Trump administration has handled this has in many ways played into Iran’s long-term strategic strengths. Mike Pezzullo argues that Trump should have involved allies much earlier. Failing to prepare de-mining capabilities or to get allies to help Gulf Arab states in counter-drone defences betrays poor planning.
The Americans say peace talks with Iran failed because they couldn’t get sufficient reassurance on nuclear enrichment. I think that’s misleading. The key today is Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The disgraced Pezzullo still being quoted as a reliable expert? 

Only in bromancer land, as the reptiles featured that heroic winner, Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference in Islamabad. Picture: Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo

On and on the bromancer rambled, with the possibility that China might be dragged into proceedings surely a cause for celebration, because at last he might get his much desired war with China well before Xmas ...

Washington has achieved degradation of Iranian military capabilities. But Iran uses drones, sea mines, missiles and even artillery to make the Strait of Hormuz impassable without its permission. If the US walks away leaving Iran controlling who gets through the strait, and charging each ship a toll, that’s a massive defeat.
Here’s a weird thing. Until now the US has allowed Iran to keep trading its own oil on shadow fleets. Because of the spike in oil prices, this meant Iran was making twice as much money from its oil as it was before the war.
The US blockade is designed to cut all that money off and therefore make it harder for Tehran to keep on resisting. This will in the short term remove more oil from the international system.
It’s unclear how the US will enforce the blockade. Presumably it won’t actually sink any oil tanker that refuses its order to stop and be inspected. Instead it would have to board such a ship with US Navy SEALs and the like, then determine whether the ship’s cargo carried was loaded in Iran, then take custody of the ship or turn it back.
Iran has been allowing ships from friendly nations such as China to get through. Will the US enforce its blockade against Chinese ships, or ships with other nations’ flags carrying oil for China?

On the basis that you can never have enough bro, the reptiles introduced an AV distraction featuring him blathering to petulant Peta in his usual gloomy way, and luckily the pond could reduce it to an indicative screen cap ... The Australian Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says if the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz, they have “won an enormous victory”. “They have withstood the worst that Trump can give, and they haven’t buckled,” Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Peta Credlin. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard is still in control in Iran. “That is a big victory.”

What a defeatist, as the bromancer kept showing signs of blinking ...

Here is where my friend’s laws of diminishing returns for the US and increasing returns for Iran come in. Iranians can read US poll numbers. This is an exceptionally unpopular war with the American public, about one-third of whom support it. Trump’s statements have swung wildly throughout the war, creating much confusion and ill will. He alternates between trying to influence oil and stock markets by telling them the war is almost over, virtually over, about to be over. He follows with wild threats to destroy Iranian civilisation or attack every Iranian electricity plant etc.
The Iranians aren’t scared by these threats. They know Trump can’t, politically, carry them out. They interpret them as signs of Trump’s frustration, even some political desperation. All this gives Iranian policymakers an incentive to try to wait Trump out, confident that domestic US politics will force him to quit before he opens the strait. Alternatively, the Iranians believe that to get agreement on the strait, Trump could make huge concessions to them that he would try to disguise in presentation.
This will probably be for Trump as damaging as the withdrawal from Kabul was for Joe Biden, possibly much worse.
What about Australia? The three factors that will help us avoid technical recession are the huge rise in commodity prices (as usual, the Green-demonised mining industry could save us), immigration, which tends to make the overall economy bigger, and inflation.
But there’s every chance we’ll get inflation combined with massive disruption because of the energy crisis. That’s inflation plus recession – stagflation. In such circumstances the Albanese government will spend wildly, at home to cushion recession, abroad to bid for scarce resources.
Dangerous paths of escalation for this conflict are obvious, though not inevitable. If the Americans are serious about opening the strait against Iranian opposition they probably need to occupy a number of Iranian islands. That means renewed war, boots on the ground and probably US casualties.

Glorious days, as the reptiles tried to distract with a snap of other news, Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles announce senior leadership changes within the Australian Defence Force at Parliament House. The government has appointed Vice Admiral Mark Hammond as the Chief of the Defence Force. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Then there came a final plunge into bromancer gloomsville...

Iran would respond by attacking Gulf nations’ energy infrastructure. It may be able to get its Houthi clients to attack energy shipping in the Red Sea, meaning even bigger disruption.
Incoming chief of the defence force Mark Hammond claimed Australia could send our navy to the Strait of Hormuz if asked. Hammond is a distinguished, capable and honourable man who would never knowingly lie. His statement is technically true but substantially meaningless.
Our seven Anzac frigates are among the world’s least capable warships. They are old and have just eight vertical launch cells each. You could fit them with limited extra counter-drone systems but we have no serious capabilities in that area.
Of course, within a US air and sea defence bubble, even an Anzac frigate could survive. If the Americans protect civilian vessels, they will survive too. That’s the point of such operations. Our frigate couldn’t reliably defend itself. The Albanese government decided not to upgrade Anzac frigate capabilities. We could send an air warfare destroyer, of which we have just two in service, as a marginal contribution. You have to see Hammond’s comments as part of official propaganda to convince Australians we have a much more capable defence force than we really do.
The US is now retrofitting solutions to problems it should have anticipated. We have almost no influence in all this and are doing not much to prepare for an increasingly dangerous future.

Say what? Isn't AUKUS going to save us?

Maybe not ... (*intermittent archive link)

No wonder he's gloomy, but perhaps that's because he missed the story about mad King Donald the redeemer, which is pretty much everywhere, but which also appeared early in the morning in the lizard Oz just below the bromancer's piece ... though no reptile could be found to attach his name to it, and it was left to agencies...

Donald Trump deletes Jesus post of himself after outcry
Even among conservative-leaning bishops, there was dismay over the President’s unprecedented assault on Pope Leo and his Truth Social post. Trump heard them.
By AFP and AP

The nub of it was that photo ... how could the pond resist a dose of sacrilege and blasphemy early in the morning?

The likes of Marge took a view ...

Apparently many are asking these days if He's the Antichrist (Wired link), and it's on for young and old ...

But the explanation was perfectly reasonable and sensible, at least for anyone in their dotage ...

Asked about the post, Mr Trump denied that he was trying to look like Jesus Christ. “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do Red Cross,” he told journalists. “It’s supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”

Talk about senility in plain sight ...

It isn't easy for local reptiles to match that level of comedy, and Geoff, as he chambered a round for the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way, didn't even try ...

Taylor learns from Dutton errors
Angus Taylor has released the Coalition’s first immigration policy phase, learning from Peter Dutton’s past mistakes while targeting One Nation voters with detailed measures.
By Geoff Chambers
Political editor

The pond decided that a teaser trailer would do, with the intermittent archive hopefully doing the rest ...

Why do the reptiles think they're helping when they start with a snap of prime Angus grinning inanely and looking sunstruck, like a prize loon cherry red tomato in a hothouse?

So long ago, the days when talk of migrants eating cats and dogs was an election winner.

The pond didn't even bother to offer a teaser trailer for Jennings of the fifth form, delivering a standard whine ...

New ADF leaders, but no extra money
Australia’s military has appointed new leaders to senior positions, yet they inherit an under-resourced Defence Force struggling with rapidly escalating regional security threats.
By Peter Jennings

Come now, Jennings of the fifth form, surely putting a woman in charge of something is the real problem. Why, Pete Kegsbreath wouldn't stand for it ...

But at least that clearing of the reptile deck allowed space for Dame Groan's Tuesday outing.

It too was a standard whine, but the pond must pay attention to her cult following and their insatiable lust for hanging on every one of her words ...

The header: National fuel gauge is on empty – and no one is refilling; The government needs to take note as the global energy market, particularly for liquid fuels, is transformed, possibly forever.

The caption? Sadly there was no caption but that's possibly because everyone knew who he was ... Satan's little helper.

In fact Satan's little helper had probably set Dame Groan off ...

In this oil crisis, no one is calling for more fossil fuels: Bowen
Chris Bowen made the declaration as he leads the response to the fuel shock while balancing his duties as president of the COP31 UN summit.
By Rosie Lewis

Outrageous.

No one is calling for more fossil fuels?

Hold Dame Groan's beer ...

I have had my petrol car for some time. It is just fine apart from one minor defect. The fuel gauge moves from quarter to empty in the blink of an eye. I have learnt to deal with this by filling up the tank when the quarter mark approaches. It’s just a pity the federal government hasn’t adopted this cautious approach when it comes to the supply of liquid fuels – petrol, diesel, aviation fuel – that the country holds.
It came as a shock to many people that the country’s reserves of these critical fuels are around 30 days, a third of the level recommended by the International Energy Agency. We are at the bottom of the pack among advanced economies.
Even our cousins over the ditch have more than 50 days of reserve fuel. Italy has 90, France has 108 and Japan has 250 days.
There’s no need to rush out to fill up the tank if there are 200 days in reserve; 30 days is a different matter. It is not surprising therefore that the increase in the retail price of fuel has been higher in countries with relatively low reserves, leaving aside the impact of excise adjustment.
Successive governments have known about this problem for years but have dithered. Senator Jim Molan had loudly belled the cat on the issue. There was an earlier important report written by John Blackburn for the NRMA alerting us to the problem of our inadequate fuel reserves.
One option is to set up a government company that would purchase fuel reserves over several years to meet the IEA standard of 90 days. There would be a need for more storage, but over time this problem could be sorted.

It was everything her cult following expected, neigh demanded, and the next snap was also sure to send her off the deep end ... Anthony Albanese addresses the media at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Dame Groan offered an incredible solution ...

To be sure, the fuels couldn’t just be left in the tanks – the quality deteriorates – but this turnover also could be sorted. In the short term, we could store some fuel reserves with allies – an example of “friendshoring”.
There would be a cost to the taxpayer – perhaps as much as $20bn a year initially – but the reserves would sit as an asset in the books of the government company. An additional excise on fuel – say 10c a litre – could defray some of these costs, including for storage. Over time, it’s not clear that motorists would notice.

"Friendshoring"?

 Hadn't that been tried with the US?

Oh dear, another beefy boofhead triumph, at least until we discovered that the friend had fallen under the baleful rule of a demented mad King ...

Perhaps Dame Groan was thinking of New Zealand? Or at a pinch Tasmania?

Apparently this talk of "friendshoring" is completely wrong in reptile la la land if it happens to involve people of the wrong skin colour.

But do carry on ...

A contribution also would be expected from those operators currently in receipt of the diesel fuel rebate because the revenue would be used to add to reserves that would benefit them as well.
A similar contribution would be expected from the aviation indus­try.
An ideal outcome would be if the addition to the national supplies of fuel could be sourced locally. But over the past two decades the proportion of liquid fuels from domestic wells has fallen sharply.
The almost complete absence of exploration and new developments has ensured this outcome as well as the closure of most of our refineries.
The broader context of this trend is the hostility to fossil fuel developments on the part of both the federal and state governments. Driven by an obsession with net zero and meeting arbitrary emissions reduction targets, potential investments in fossil fuel-based developments have fled the country.
It’s not as though our consumption of liquid fuels has fallen; we have simply exported the associated emissions to the countries from which we import the fuels, both crude and refined.
A crossroad has now been reached. There is broad recognition of the inadequacy of our liquid fuel reserves and the consequences that potential shortages and higher prices are having well beyond servo bowsers.

It couldn't be fully fossilised foolishness about fossil fuels without an appearance by fossil Jimbo, and so it came to pass ... Jim Molan

Of late it seems that the pond should spend some time introducing the dramatis personae to be found in reptile texts.

Come on down Vaclav Smil ...alleged "noted environmental scientist" ...

Ok, Doomer: What Vaclav Smil and the disinformation echo chamber get wrong about the climate crisis

After reading the fawning coverage of Vaclav Smil’s 41st, and hopefully final, book How the World Really Works (2022) — the latest edition of an old white dude mansplaining to future generations why a just, sustainable society is impossible — I got riled up and started to write a detailed rebuttal. There are so many problems with Smil’s book.. and the man himself.
A Professor Emeritus of Geography (retired) at the University of Manitoba, Smil is sort of the high priest of naysaying, who has a long history with the American Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that has received millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests, including oil giant ExxonMobil. He is the master of a particular form of climate denial that I call climate action denial.
He doesn’t believe a world powered by 100% clean, renewable energy is feasible, and he has published literature sowing doubt about the significance of human-caused climate change. Unsurprisingly, he thinks fracking is awesome and that the public is far too worried about the risks posed by extractive industries. He characterized the idea of transitioning to electric vehicles as a “myth” and sustainability in general as a “laugh.”

And so on and on, and he sounds perfect for a walk-on role.

It's unlikely that Central Casting could have found anyone better suited to Dame Groan's needs ...

The impact is hitting agriculture, particularly in terms of diesel and urea availability and prices, mining, construction, healthcare as well as what’s left of manufacturing. There are still true believers who regard recent events as a signal to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and push for higher rates of electrification, particularly of road transport.
But note here that road transport accounts for less than 20 per cent of total emissions.
We are still a long way off long-haul trucks converting to battery power at any scale and the costs of the conversion are extremely high. In the short to medium term, excavators, cranes, bulldozers, tractors, combine harvesters, irrigation pumps, marine equipment and the like are overwhelmingly powered by diesel.
It is worth noting here the finding of Vaclav Smil, the noted environmental scientist, that there are currently no practical and cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuel for primary iron, cement, ammonia (fertilisers) and plastics.
According to Smil’s calculation, the best we can expect from electrification is a decline in emissions of between 20 and 25 per cent. The recent demise of the green hydrogen dream as a zero-emissions liquid fuel has reinforced his conclusion.
It is alarming our political leaders are failing to comprehend the magnitude of the threat to our economy and way of life of our low fuel reserves. The Prime Minister has announced that “Singapore is a major supplier of fuel to Australia”, without realising that a great deal of the fuel that Singapore refines is sourced through the Strait of Hormuz.

At  this point, the reptiles decided to crank up the volume by inserting an AV distraction featuring the mad King, who also serves these days as climate science denialist in chief, doing more to wreck the world than a hundred Groanings could manage ...

US President Donald Trump has vowed to end Iran’s “world extortion” in the Strait of Hormuz. He accused Tehran of exploiting global oil routes by demanding tolls from passing tankers. Trump warned that the US would take decisive action to reopen the critical shipping lane. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted,” Trump wrote to Truth Social. The threat came after peace talks collapsed following 21 hours of negotiations.

And so at last to the final bleat, with nuking the country and coal also ready for walk-on roles, with special thanks to the mad King...

The Treasurer has been prattling on about the need for “cleaner and cheaper energy, more diverse sources and more reliable and robust supply chains”. Apart from the possibility of adding biofuels to our reserves it’s not even clear what he is talking about.
In muted terms, the Productivity Commission had warned the government about some of these problems, finding that “the main supply chain risks lie in the use of vulnerable chemical imports in health (human medicine manufacturing), energy (petrol and coal product refining) and water treatment industries”. It was just easier to ignore the warning.
The leaders of several countries are now explicitly declaring the primacy of energy security over other objectives. Japan is returning to nuclear power; Germany is prolonging the life of coal-fired electricity plants and is considering the reintroduction of nuclear; and the EU is walking away from rigid adherence to climate neutrality. The US, of course, has ditched its commitment to net zero and has exited the Paris Agreement.
The Australian government needs to take note of these developments as the global energy market, particularly for liquid fuels, is transformed, possibly forever.

Finally, the pond couldn't resist a gloat after spotting this in The Graudian ... 

Tony Abbott labels Viktor Orbán ‘Trump with brains’ as future of Budapest thinktank linked to former PM in doubt
Former Australian PM, who has been associated with pro-Orbán Danube Institute since 2023, praises ousted Hungarian leader

What a deeply corrupt man he is, selling his narcissistic preening soul for a mess of authoritarian pottage...

Tony Abbott has likened Viktor Orbán to “[Donald] Trump with brains” and labelled him Hungary’s “greatest modern leader”, as the future of his work for the ousted leader’s pet thinktank hangs in the balance.
Orbán’s 16-year grip on power in Hungary has ended after the rightwing populist leader conceded his Fidesz party had lost to the opposition Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, which won at least 138 of the 199 seats in the country’s parliament.
Abbott has been connected to the conservative Danube Institute as a senior visiting fellow since 2023, according to Australia’s foreign influence transparency scheme. Orbán’s ousting puts the future of pro-Fidesz thinktanks like the Danube Institute, which rely heavily on his former government’s funding, in doubt.
Abbott, Australia’s 28th prime minister, praised Orbán on social media for making Budapest “something of a haven for conservative intellectuals”, saying he did not “expect the new government will want that to change”.
“The economy has strengthened, the city of Budapest has been transformed, and Hungary’s family policies and determination to keep its culture have been studied around the world,” Abbott said.
“[Orbán] and I differed on Ukraine but I thought he was dead right to defy the EU, on illegal immigration especially. Why should a sovereign nation be bullied by Brussels into policies that would jeopardise its future as a distinct people?”

If the new Hungarian government has a whit or jot of sense they'll kick this craven lickspittle and fellow traveller out so fast his budgie smugglers will be forced to wander a north shore beach desolate and alone.

The pond these days finds itself routinely astonished at being found quoting Anne Applebaum, and yet here we are in The Atlantic ...

Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable
If Viktor Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too. (*intermittent archive link)

In the end, the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, required not just an ordinary election campaign or new messaging but rather the construction of a broad, diverse, and patriotic grassroots social movement. And by building exactly that, Hungary’s opposition changed politics around the world.
Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.

So it was with the onion muncher, so surely it will hopefully be with mad king Donald.

And again ...

...whatever happens next, this election represents a real turning point. For most European governments, this result is a relief: We can’t know yet what kind of government Tisza will create, but it won’t be one that functions as Russia’s puppet in Europe, blocking EU funding for Ukraine or European sanctions on Russia. Nor will it be a regime that serves as a model for Americans or Europeans who want to capture their own states, or take apart their own checks and balances, or impose their own illiberal ideologies on people who don’t accept them.

It might be a frying pan v. fire situation, but at least there's a change of scenery.

And so ends another day ...

In which the Caterist and Major Mitchell lead the climate science denying, renewables bashing way. Yawn!

 

The pond recently noticed this piece by Arianne Shahvisi in the LRB headed Gamer’s Dilemma (*intermittent archive link)

Shahvisi started off this way ...

In a strong field of contenders, the most morally troubling computer game ever made is probably RapeLay, released in Japan in 2006. Players are required to adopt the role of a sex offender who must stalk and rape a woman and her daughters, aged 12 and 17. It was banned in the UK in 2009 and eventually removed from sale in Japan too. The game spurred a debate among academic philosophers, centred on the ‘gamer’s dilemma’, a conceit formulated by Morgan Luck. Why is virtual killing morally acceptable in computer games, Luck asked, while virtual child sex abuse is not, given that no real person is harmed in either case?

... but quickly honed in on a more important dilemma ...

...If there are rumours that you’ve sexually abused a child, waging an expensive, unpopular, illegal war, let alone one whose opening salvo kills more than a hundred little girls, seems a strange bid at reputation laundering. But Trump is relying on the wonky moral arithmetic that produces the gamer’s dilemma, plus the racial supremacy that drives all Western foreign policy: the suspicion that he abused a white girl is a threat to his legitimacy in a way that the documented obliteration of a school of brown girls is not.
The inconsistency crops up again in the apologies that have spread like a rash among powerful men in Epstein’s orbit: they are sorry, they didn’t know, they hope for justice. Bill Clinton regrets his friendship. Does he regret obliterating Sudan’s malaria drugs and IV fluids? There is much to regret. Epstein was into everything: sexual abuse, eugenics, settler colonialism. He made donations to the Israeli Defence Forces and the Jewish National Fund, which finances illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
There is an audio recording of Epstein’s friend Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel, telling the financier that he had told Vladimir Putin that Israel needed a million Russian Jews to ‘control the quality’ of the population, given the growing numbers of Palestinians and racialised Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, adding the sweetener that ‘many young, beautiful girls would come, tall and slim.’ Barak ‘regrets’ his links to Epstein. Does his regret his role as the defence minister who ordered the killing of 1400 Palestinians, including more than three hundred children, in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead?
The apologies from those linked to Epstein are grubby, suspect, insufficient. But they display a deference to the terms of some kind of morality: it is never OK to sexually abuse a child and it is very bad to be associated with those who do. Is it OK to kill a child? To associate with those who do? What about twenty thousand children? Will we ever see apologies from those whose friends have blown the limbs off children in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran? The discrepancy that drives the gamer’s dilemma doesn’t come from our rightful horror at paedophilia – virtual or real – but from our complacency about so much murder.

It made the pond wonder. 

Nearly all refugees admitted in US since October 2025 were (white) South Africans, data shows...

No need to wonder, but will the pond - or the hive mind - ever see apologies from News Corp and its minions, who have enabled and encouraged ethnic cleansing and the killing fields and the white Xian nationalism?

Probably not, but it explains why the pond frequently feels the need to apologise for presenting reprehensible reptiles to an admittedly discreet and worldly wise bunch of correspondents ...

And so we begin again this day with some great news, though it was too late in the morning for those on the extreme far right of the rag to contemplate said BREAKING news ...

BREAKING
‘Painful’: Hungary’s Orban ousted in historic poll defeat
The long-serving Hungarian Prime Minister has conceded defeat, telling supporters: ‘The result of the election is clear and painful.’
By Jacquelin Magnay

So the onion muncher's and Vlad the Sociopath's and JD Vance's friend has gone down? 

There's probably gong to be a sting in the tail somewhere down the line, but the pond will settle for a rush of joy.

Meanwhile there was other "news" in the "news" section of the lizard Oz...

Middle East at war
Trump announces US to blockade Strait of Hormuz
US President Donald Trump said the US Navy would begin blockading ‘any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz’, after peace talks with Iran in Islamabad collapsed.
By Jack Quail and Agencies

That splash led to a short summary ...

President Donald Trump on Sunday ordered a US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in response to Iran’s “unyielding” refusal to give up its nuclear ambitions during peace talks in Islamabad.
While acknowledging that the marathon talks in Pakistan had gone “well” and “most points were agreed to,” Trump said Tehran had refused to concede on the issue of its nuclear program.
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump said.

So he intends to plunge the world's economy into a spiral of doom while acting as a common or garden eighteenth century pirate?

Agggh, me hearties.

The pond notes this because in the lizard Oz editorial whining about the recalcitrant Iranians came this corker...

The Tehran regime must understand, if it cares, that there will be no end to Iranians’ suffering, and more devastation until complete freedom of navigation through the Strait is assured. Western nations should be helping the US secure that crucial goal. The importance to the world of reopening the Strait has been underlined by the failure of the Islamabad talks. 

So a compleat BLOCKADE is the way forward, complete freedom is a complete blockage, war is peace, and no doubt chairman Xi will take note.

Perhaps it's just another thought bubble from a mad King, who seems to more and more be favouring Roman Emperors as role models ...

And that's the end of the entertainment because alas, this day the reptiles used the crisis to indulge in yet another round of climate science denialism and fossil fuel worship.

Trust the reptiles always to learn the wrong lesson ...trust the quarry whisperer to lead the way:

The header: The four dates that punctured the left’s net-zero fantasies; As the Trump administration has shown, the net-zero industrial complex must be starved, not slain.

The caption for a snap much used by the reptiles: Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen during a visit to the Ampol Lytton refinery in Brisbane. Picture: NewsWire / Tertius Pickard

The pond will understand if senior herpetology students decide to sneak out of class this time. 

Been there, done that so many times, with a yadda yadda here and a whatever there...

The monomaniacal pursuit of net zero had to be abandoned sooner or later. Politically contaminated science, coupled with the requirement for a watertight global agreement, made it vulnerable to the lightest brush with reality.
Historians may well recall that its demise occurred between February 2022 and April 9, 2026, beginning with Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that shut off Russian oil and gas supplies, and destroyed the romance of decarbonisation for hundreds of millions of Europeans.
The second pivotal moment occurred on October 7, 2023, when the global left’s response to mass torture, rape, killing and kidnapping of Israeli men, women and children revealed that Palestine had replaced global warming as its cause de jour.
The US-Israel campaign against Iran that began on February 28, triggering the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, destroyed the delusion that the energy transition was making progress. It turned out that the world was even more dependent on hydrocarbons than it had been 53 years earlier during the last major supply crisis.
In Australia, at least, historians will probably nominate Thursday, April 9, as the day the final nail was hammered into the coffin. It was the day Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese visited the Lytton refinery near the Port of Brisbane, the first visit by a prime minister since May 2021, when Scott Morrison and his then energy minister, Angus Taylor, announced the deal to stop the Ampol refinery moving offshore.

The reptiles flung in a snap of their favourite villain ... Chris Bowen during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The pond has been zooming around town in the old EV startled by the singular absence of traffic even in peak hour, but refuses to gloat ... while the phantom flood waters analyst carried on in his luddite way..

The PM didn’t want to be seen near the joint this time last year when he was campaigning in the seat of Bonner. Today, however, it’s a different story, even if not every reporter at last week’s press conference was across the government’s revised talking points on fossil fuels. Subject: Loaded Adjectives. Text: Delete “dirty, harmful, and morally indefensible” and insert “reliable, affordable, and prosperity-enabling”.
Asked for an update on the Safeguard Mechanism, Labor’s keynote policy designed to reduce emissions from large industrial facilities such as Lytton, Bowen replied: “It’s not on the top of my to-do list right now, to be frank with you. I’m focused on other matters.”
Bowen may try to dismiss this as a throwaway line, just as he suggests that abandoning the 82 per cent renewables target for the east coast grid is of little consequence. Yet the government’s energy U-turn cannot easily be brushed off.
For four years, the Albanese government has lavished subsidies, raised punitive taxes and increased regulation to reduce fossil fuel demand. Now, as the PM told us after returning from Singapore, the government’s three top priorities are supply, supply and supply.
Just a year ago, Labor delayed approving a major extension of Australia’s largest LNG development until after the election to avoid a backlash from the left. Last week, the PM went cap-in-hand to Singapore, where he used gas from that very project as a bargaining chip to secure imports of petrol, diesel and avgas.

Not content with one Caterist, the reptiles doubled down with him appearing with lovely meter maid Rita (still no rebranding? Must we wait forever for the name?)

Menzies Research Centre Senior Fellow Nick Cater claims reality is catching up with the net zero debate. “Reality is starting to catch up with this debate,” Mr Cater told Sky News host Rita Panahi. “This is crazy modelling; they’ve stuck with it as long as they can.”

There then came some impeccable analysis by the quarry whisperer:

This brazen about-turn carries low political risk for Labor. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy’s 2010 prediction that the intellectual left’s animating cause would be a version of antisemitism has proved correct.
Raising awareness of the climate emergency by gluing oneself to the Harbour Bridge is old-school. Today, one’s social justice credentials are displayed by marching across it in a keffiyeh in the company of an assortment of dubious characters.
The moral force of net zero has diminished. Five years ago, Morrison signed up to the Paris Agreement not because he wanted to but because he was frightened that the Liberal Party’s support would collapse if he didn’t. As it turned out, the Liberals’ vote collapsed anyway. Late last year, the Coalition dropped the commitment to net zero, and almost no one noticed.

Um, perhaps because the coalition has, in following News Corp's lead on climate science, been a rabble whispering into a void, and now such a rump no one notices? Especially as it's a rump led by a beefy boofhead who earned his stripes ranting at windmills?

Correspondents will note that the pond is feeling a tad jaded by all this...

Yet we should not imagine, for a moment, that the change in the political wind means public policy will change course. Bureaucracies do not reverse on command. They carry stored momentum, converted into agencies, grant programs, reporting frameworks, procurement rules and career structures.
The degree of institutional inertia is considerable. Abolishing the Department of Climate Change and Energy, as One Nation promises to do, will do little more than place a line in the sand. The dense undergrowth of quasi-government bodies, regulators, advisory boards and grant recipients will largely remain untouched.

It wouldn't be a campaign ad proper if the mob didn't score a snap...

Leader of the Opposition Angus Taylor MP and Leader of the Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, joined by Liberal and National Party Members and Senators, hold a press conference at Parliament House. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

And that was about it ...

Even if the scalpel were taken to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Clean Energy Regulator, the Renewable Energy Target, the Emissions Reduction Fund and the Climate Change Authority, the real work would scarcely have begun.
Dozens of quangos, commissions, agencies and co-ordinators have been created at state level. Beyond government sits an even wider ecosystem: advocacy groups funded to keep the pressure on, universities with research centres and grants, public broadcasters with specialist climate rounds, and corporations whose incentives are driven by ESG.
Even after the political tide turns, all of this machinery goes on whirring. The momentum is embedded in payrolls, contracts, budgets and careers. The Coalition should take note.
As the Trump administration has shown, the net-zero industrial complex must be starved, not slain. It will be overcome by defunding, deregulation and the exhaustion of capital. NASA’s success in sending astronauts beyond the moon suggests the threat of deep cuts to the agency’s climate-related work is already bearing fruit.
There is no quick fix, however, particularly in a parliamentary system that does not allow an incoming prime minister to exercise the sweeping executive powers of a US president. Democratic correction here will be less dramatic, beginning with the slow bleed of money, status and cultural authority. Net zero will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.

As for the planet? If the Caterist and his companions at the lizard Oz have his way, it will end in the manner of a stuffed and right royally cooked goose ...

As for the rest of the rabble, the pond seized on the chance discovery of the intermittent archive in working mode to send a number of them off to that dismal cornfield.

The pond apologises in advance. It's a risky strategy, a minute by minute proposition, an exercise in frustration, but actually dealing with this mob would be worse.

Nick led the march of the damned ...

The hollow populism of Max Chandler-Mather
The Greens have not broken through but consolidated a niche – and a niche is not a mass movement.
By Nick Dyrenfurth
Contributor

Whenever the pond reads the tag, Nick Dyrenfurth is executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre, the pond can't help but ask why Nick has turned into a reptile regular. Still pleased to be one of the reptiles ruining the planet, Nick? Still determined to make Curtin keep rolling in his grave.

As usual, there was an obligatory piece about the war with China by Xmas, but instead of the bromancer, it was Rowan ...

Xi is planning a ‘peaceful’ Taiwan deal Trump can accept
When Trump meets Xi in a month, he may believe he holds the upper hand, no longer feeling a need to make concessions.
By Rowan Callick
Contributor

The pond was delighted that Rowan had only yesterday had an intimate discussion with Chairman Xi, and so had intimate knowledge of his plans, but the pond thought it might be better just to wait and see what actually might unfold. 

After all, King Donald has shown the way forward. Blockade!

Brownie was also to hand ...

Tell us strait: there’s nothing wrong in a leader saying sorry
Anthony Albanese should be more prepared to admit mistakes and even issue the occasional apology when he gets it wrong.
By Greg Brown
Chief political correspondent

The pond might have taken Brownie seriously if he'd started with an apology for the unseemly way his boss had encouraged King Donald to embark on the Iran folly, with another apology for the way his kissing cousins at Faux Noise had acted as war mongering cheerleaders. Physician heal thyself, and set the example would have been good starting points for Brownie, but no such like.

As for simpleton Simon, it was just the usual bog standard outing ..

Jim’s ‘voodoo economics’ strikes back
Chalmers has been making all the right noises about not wasting a crisis, but he may be overruled again.
By Simon Benson
Political analys

The pond will wait for Dame Groan's groaning tomorrow ...

And that meant that all that was left was the sorry sight of assorted reptiles seizing on the current crisis to plunge the world back into the days of picket fences and gas guzzlers... including the lizard Oz editorialist...

The editorialist would say that, that's how it works in the hive mind, incessant repetition, incantations and yearning for things to stay the same, as if the climate heeds their monotonous chanting.

Cue Major Mitchell, doing a standard Major five minute rant ...

The header: Oil shock shows world still runs on fossil fuels, not green promises; Environment writers who claim the Iran war oil shock will be a boost for renewable energy don’t understand how industrial production actually works.

The caption: Scottich (sic) First Minister John Swinney launches an SNP campaign on fuel prices on April 7, in Leith, Scotland. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Yawn.

The best the pond can do is introduce the dramatis personae in this turgid outing, as dull as George Bernard Shaw in full verbiage flight.

The first, a certain Michael Shellenberger, made an appearance in an old Damian Carrington piece for the Graudian, The four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them all

A new book, described as “deeply and fatally flawed” by an expert reviewer, recently reached the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for environmental science and made it into a weekly top 10 list for all nonfiction titles.
How did this happen? Because, as Brendan Behan put it, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. In an article promoting his book, Michael Shellenberger – with jaw-dropping hubris – apologises on behalf of all environmentalists for the “climate scare we created over the last 30 years”.
Shellenberger was named a hero of the environment by Time magazine in 2008 and is a loud advocate of nuclear power, but the article was described by six leading scientists as “cherry-picking”, “misleading” and containing “outright falsehoods”.

Sounds exactly like the sort of leading man the Major would love.

There's a lot more that can be found about him on the full to overflowing intertubes, but the short version is that he's a flake and a phoney.

As for the leading woman, some would think that the name alone, Zion Lights, explains everything.

The Major wants to think that she's been largely ignored, a stunning ingenue ready to take leading lady status and dominate centre stage, but in reality she could be found peddling her wares in the 'Tiser way back in October 2021 ...

Extinction Rebellion to climate champion: Zion Lights explains why nuclear power is our answer
A former key official in the Extinction Rebellion movement has revealed why she’s turning her back on its doomsday messages to back nuclear power.

That header alone suggests an explanation, which a metaphor might elucidate: Opus Dei fanatic becomes fanatical atheist, or vice versa, fanatical atheist becomes Opus Dei zealot ...

“I used to be in that kind of camp saying: ‘We should all use less,’ but, actually, let’s be honest, where has that gotten us?
“For decades, it’s gotten us nowhere. It hasn’t happened. Behavioural scientists have not found a way to make people magically to have a huge reduction in how much energy they use.”
Ms Lights argues reducing emissions means increasing electricity use, to transfer transport and heating from fossil fuel power.

Don't ask the pond to explain what that last line actually means. The important point is that Zion saw the Lights and she decided to nuke the planet to save the planet.

With that introduction to the main characters, it's on with the Major ...

Environment writers who claim the Iran war oil shock will be a boost for renewable energy don’t understand how industrial production actually works.
The world spent $US2.5 trillion ($3.55 trillion) on green projects in 2025 alone.
Yet more than 91 per cent of total Australian energy use still relies on fossil fuels. The global figure is more than 82 per cent.
All the renewable energy installed in the past decade has not shielded the world from the effects of the partial blockage of 20 per cent of the world’s oil by Iran in the Straits of Hormuz for only six weeks.
It’s a lesson that should have been learned earlier. Many countries, especially in Europe, accelerated the closure of reliable fossil fuel power after the gas shock triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thinking more renewables would protect them.
It’s like even governments don’t understand almost every industry globally depends on fossil fuels, from making fertiliser, plastics and cement to smelting metals, refining Avgas for planes, diesel for farm machinery, and trucks and heavy oil for shipping.
Yet environment editor Nick O’Malley in the Nine papers assured his readers on March 19 that the way forward from the present oil crisis was more subsidies for electrification.
O’Malley claimed China was showing the world the way forward without fossil fuels by building more renewables capacity since 2022 than the rest of the world combined. True but China is also the world’s biggest CO2 emitter, largest user of coal and second largest user of oil.
That won’t change any time soon because the green steel, green ammonia and green hydrogen the Nine papers have been spruiking for a decade do not exist.
Sure renewables are becoming the backbone of our electricity system but 80 per cent of our fossil fuel use is in industries other than electricity generation.
And while the world has been spending trillions of dollars a year since Covid building out renewables, it has wound back spending on oil and gas exploration and production.
Mike Shellenberger on the Public website estimates total global spending on oil and gas exploration and production peaked at $US780bn in 2014 and fell to $US350bn by 2020 – a fraction of what is spent on renewables that deliver only a small proportion of global total energy.
Discussing a new book, Abundance, that Labor ministers here have been spruiking, Shellenberger in “Democrats’ Fake ‘Abundance’ Agenda Will Continue Energy Scarcity” on April 5 said the Hormuz crisis showed the world needed to build more oil and gas pipelines.
“The only energy abundance solution that works at the scale of civilisation right now is piping natural gas and oil. A pipeline delivers energy continuously, at near zero marginal cost per unit delivered, with no exposure to shipping choke points, insurance markets or geopolitical disruption.”
Asking why the left continues to push the idea renewables are the solution to industrial processes renewables cannot power, Shellenberger answers, “The first reason is profit. Solar and wind development is an enormously lucrative business, not because the technology is superior but because the subsidies are guaranteed.”
Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act allocated $US370bn to solar, wind and batteries. The EU Green Deal offered a trillion euros.
“The returns are attractive precisely because the government guarantees them.”
This is the model the Albanese government and Minister for Energy Chris Bowen are copying without wondering where the rest of our energy requirement will come from even if we do manage to build an electrical grid on renewables, storage, batteries and gas back-up.
Shellenberger says bankers are the big drivers of support for renewables because every wind farm, solar array and big battery project involves commissions for financial intermediaries brokering deals between manufacturers and power providers.
“Goldman does not profit from cheap, abundant energy delivered through pipelines at near-zero marginal cost. Goldman profits from complex, capital intensive projects that require financing, structuring and advisory fees.”
As this column has argued for a decade, it’s big bankers and financiers preaching the gospel of sustainability who reap the rewards of renewables. Think Malcolm Turnbull and Simon Holmes a Court here.
Shellenberger says China is the other big winner.
“China proliferated cheap solar panels to the West not out of environmental conviction but as an industrial strategy that made Western nations dependant on Chinese manufacturing while China itself relied on the energy source that actually works at scale: coal.
“China burns more than half the world’s coal. It built an electricity grid twice the size of America’s. It stockpiled critical minerals.
“It built coal-to-chemicals facilities to produce diesel and jet fuel domestically and for military needs,” Shellenberger says.
Meanwhile, Australia, the largest exporter of coal to China, plans to shut all its coal power generation plants and places stringent approvals processes in front of any potential new coal mine. Yet Labor claims it is accelerating its Future Made in Australia strategy in response to the present oil crisis.
What of the world’s biggest losers from the renewables transition? That would be the poorest people from the world’s least developed countries.

The pond let the Major ramble on because the reptiles were so zonked on Valium they didn't have the heart to interrupt him with a single visual distraction.

Not one snap of demonic whale-killing windmills? Not one snap of renewables ruining landscapes?

The reptiles did briefly rouse from their slumbers to feature the demonic sun and sinister solar glistening in its evil light ... Bankers are the big drivers of support for renewables because every wind farm, solar array and big battery project involves commissions. Picture: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Bankers!  Evil bankers!! Possibly even cosmopolitans!!

Some might be wondering when Zion would make her appearance. Worry not, here she is, Lightsing the way ...

Shellenberger on April 1 interviewed Zion Lights, an activist who quit Extinction Rebellion in the UK in 2020 and was quoted in this column about XR’s extreme methods at the time.
Lights has written an important new book, Energy is Life, Why Environmentalism Went Nuclear.
She describes how for the past two decades “climate policy has been the dominant priority in wealthy nations’ engagement with the developing world”.
“Western NGOs have even blocked the construction of hydro-electric dams, which tends to be the first reliable source of power that poor nations develop as they rise the development ladder,” she tells Shellenberger’s podcast.
After the Paris Agreement in 2015, private institutions and national governments “began systematically restricting financing for oil, gas and coal projects in the developing world”.
“The practical effect was to deny poor countries the energy infrastructure that every wealthy nation used to climb out of poverty.
“Between 2017 and 2019, multilateral development banks provided an average $US9.7bn annually in direct fossil fuel finance.
“By 2020-22, that figure had collapsed to $US3.2bn.
“In March 2021, the UK’s export finance agency ended all financial support for overseas fossil fuel projects.”
At COP 26 in Glasgow in November 2021, 20 countries and five development banks pledged to stop financing unabated fossil fuels by the end of 2022
Lights goes on to outline how the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank then began forcing the closure of various fossil fuel projects.
Yet in Africa, 600 million people are living without electricity.
Lights says she has never been interviewed by the BBC. Our ABC, Guardian Australia and Nine papers are just as deaf to thoughtful voices on the realities of energy and environmentalism.

Relax, Zion, your natural home is the hive mind, dwelling amongst the reptiles in fossil fuel bliss ...murmuring all the while about evil bankers, perhaps even the Rothschilds, though that sounds a tad strange coming from the lips of a devoted Zionist of the Major kind ...

Enough already ,,, on with the main show ...

Go, Faux Noise... turn a pig's ear into a pearl right before our disbelieving eyes ...