In which the pond wakes up early to discover a reptile wilderness ...

 

The pond got up early, bright-eyed and bushy tailed and keen to crack on, full of get go Tamworth spirit, and keen to continue its herpetological studies in the bright dawn light, only to be shocked to discover what the reptiles get up to in the wee hours ...

Three lizard Oz editorials as filler! Why that's more padding than you'd find in the average mattress ... and it didn't get any better after the six o'clock swill, and the changing of the guard..

Something about the rankings rankling, yadda yadda? That's just another bloody mattress ...

When the pond looked at the commentary above the fold, the pond realised it had been duped yet again, and had pretty much wasted its time, and should have stayed abed, and to heck and beyond with herpetology studies...

 

Dame Slap, apparently finally exhausted by blathering about the Voice and the Lehrmann matter, returning to an old favourite, activist judges? No thanks, why waste time with activist reptiles? 

As for a hearty dose of homophobia, with even the reptiles feeling the need to put scare quotes around the scare, no thanks ...

But what to do? Having got up so early the pond had to do something, so the pond ran with the surviving bit of lizard Oz filler ...

Well, yes, speaking of ugly realities, there was this Pew poll, not so long ago on 15th June, More than four-in-ten Republicans now say the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine ...

That's the News Corp readership and viewership in a nutshell. Must they all become Democrats now?

Of course security has been much on mind in recent times ...

... but that's another story, routinely avoided by the lizard Oz ...

And so to another bit of mattress padding, this time imported from the WSJ ... not that the pond expected to learn anything ... what with it being a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma ...

Meanwhile, speaking of civil war, A Republican ‘civil war’ on Ukraine erupts as Reagan’s example fades ... (sorry, WaPo paywall, 15th March)

Well yes, and here we are ...

The pond has made no secret of its bloodlust in support of Ukraine, and is perfectly happy to give gifts to the participants in sundry special military operations ...

If only the gift could be given to a wider circle ... but back to the enigma, naturally featuring a snap ...

Everything that happens in Russia elicits a library of conspiracy theories? 

Sheesh, Russia's just the same old, same old oligarch routine, money and power and corruption ...

It's America that delivers really genuine crackpots ...

And once you've got a crackpot, other crackpots are attracted ...

And the crackpot keeps on cracking on, and soon enough you have campaigning crackpots...

That was just the headline ... the full yarn was in The Atlantic under the header The First MAGA Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is feeding Americans' appetite for conspiracies ...

Perhaps just a sample, because it turns out this crackpot has a lot in common with the addled Kari Lake when it comes to Ukraine ...

There's a lot more, beyond the valley of the average fruitcake, but that talk of Ukraine brought the pond back to the topic at hand, and an immortal Rowe ...

Some days you win, some days you lose, it's the way it goes in military aid and herpetological studies. 

The pond has at least delivered one decent conspiracy theorist, and might have even discovered an explanation ...

The United States has grown only more conspiratorial in the half century since the publication of Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” There are those who refuse to get the COVID vaccine because of the slim potential of adverse side effects, and then there are those who earnestly fear that these innoculations are a way for the federal government to implant microchips in the bodies of citizens. The line between fact and fantasy has blurred, and fewer and fewer Americans are tethered to something larger or more meaningful than themselves.
Kennedy was raised in the Catholic Church and regularly attended Mass for most of his life. These days, he told me, his belief system is drawn from a wide array of sources.

From a giant Ponzi scheme to a vast array of conspiracy theories ... and that link to the yarn by Hofstadter in Harpers in 1964 was working and well worth a visit ...

And now the pond should finish up with another pic-led gobbet ...

Actually there have been a few Americans willing to put their lives at risk, and even died for the cause, but it's hardly surprising that many Americans would much rather go fishing ...

In which the pond must get past to the groaning to discover the bromancer making everything perfectly clear ...

 

A little housekeeping. Tomorrow the pond has early morning back to back meetings, a rare occurrence, so if the pond sleeps in - which has been happening of late - herpetological studies might only land late in the day.

But that's tomorrow and today is today, and reading Nesrine Malik's piece for the Graudian, It doesn’t matter if a girl identified as a cat (she didn’t). The issue is how post-truth politics exploits it, the pond stumbled through the snappy Tom nonsense and then arrived at this ...

...Sarah Lyall, who once covered London for the New York Times, described the Daily Mail’s unofficial motto as “What fresh hell is this?”, and that aptly describes how we are primed to react with hostility to those who do not conform to a strict identity and economic profile. You must not need, you must not be different, you must not imagine or demand new ways of being, all while being reassured that we are out of the woods, that Britain is in fact, an exceptionally tolerant and liberal place...

Instantly the pond felt an affinity. Each day the reptiles' official lizard Oz motto is What fresh hell is this?, disguised as "for the informed Australian" (in this case, "informed" is code for "eternally damned").

When the pond followed the link to the NY Times story, it was disappointed to find that it was about the Olympics ...

...Meanwhile, The Daily Mail, whose unofficial motto appears to be “What Fresh Hell Is This?” has published articles noting that hundreds of thousands of tickets are still unsold, that no one wants to watch women play soccer and that some of the paths for the mountain bike competition will not be finished in time. “Security Shambles Could Cause Chaos for Spectators,” the paper said this week, next to an article with the headline “London’s Transport System Fails Again.”

Well yes, the Olympics is as close to hell as the pond cares to get when it's not reading the reptiles, but back to Malik, who tried to finish up on a positive Chris Marlowe note.

...Which it is, when it is allowed and encouraged to be. When it’s not, that paradise of tolerance may, to some, seem to be all around, but to others it’s constantly just out of reach. That state calls to mind the anguish of Mephistopheles, Satan’s emissary to Doctor Faustus, when he is asked how he can be damned when he is on Earth. “Why, this is hell,” he says. “Nor am I out of it.” Nor are we. But we could be. Which is why it’s important to learn about the things that never happened.

Should the pond reveal that at this point the pond identifies as a fish, as all Pisceans should do?

Never mind, the pond spends each day learning about things that never happened, except in the fevered mind of an overactive reptile imagination, and being of the pompous Henry inclination, the pond looked up the quote from Doctor Faustus and thought it sounded vaguely familiar, if a little odd:

MEPHASTOPHILIS: Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of journalism,
And tasted the eternal joys of accurate reporting,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands,
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.
FAUSTUS: What, is great Mephastophilis so passionate
For being deprivèd of the joys of caring and careful hacks?
Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess,
And this day sup deep of yet another tedious groaning ...

Cue Dame Groan ...

At this point, the reptiles interrupted with a snap designed to terrify the readership ...

As Dame Groan groaned away in her usual style, the pond wondered why the monomania and the fixation only ran the one way ...

Why no mention of other really bad ideas, of the kind celebrated by the immortal Rowe?

Sorry, it's not the way of the Groaner ... the groaning is a one way street, and nothing should distract from the joys of the private sector ...

Now how soon before we get on to the real problem? Migrants, funny furriners coming here and ruining everything ...

Thar she blows, and you don't need an economics degree to know that when seeking wisdom, Dame Groan knows only one kind ...

On the upside, what a relief not to have to worry about being homeless. You can always rely on a home with the Groaning ... just as you can rely the Groaner standing solid with vested interests. What's the point of being a member of the 'leet if you can't blithely talk about pharmacies offering free deliveries?

Not just free deliveries, but blister packs?!

Around this point the reptiles inserted a huge snap of the villain of the day ...

But the pond was keen to get the rest of the Groaning over with ...

It may well be that the Groaner almost admitted that she was resorting to the standard refuge of the bureaucrat, with the urgent need for careful analysis and comprehensive consultation, perhaps over decades, with Sir Humphrey cheering her on from the wings ...

Sir Humphrey Appleby : [Talking about Government reports]  it could be argued that the Sermon on the Mount, were it a government report, would never have been published ...All that nonsense about the meek inheriting the Earth...It could do irreparable damage to the defence budget!

It may well be the case that the policy might be worth implementing, but it may well be much better to endlessly navel gaze and fluff gather ...

And with that in mind, the pond delicately stepped around Dame Groan's eternal yearning for the return of coal so it could survey the rest of the reptile scene, and what a disappointing bunch, with the lizard Oz editorialist again acting as filler, like sawdust in a tasteless sausage ...

There was the bouffant one beating the "no" drum yet again, and useless speculation about Wagners in China, and naturally more talk of war with China, but luckily the bromancer had been given a perch at the top of the page ...

At last a chance to find out what's really happening in Russia ... and instead of consulting a psychiatrist, naturally the pond consulted the bromancer ...

Well that's all perfectly clear then, and the pond supposes that deadlines meant that the bromancer had to rush into print before Vlad the Impaler made everything even clearer in his latest speech ...

At this point, just to help make things even clearer, the reptiles dropped in a snap ...

But that talk of giving Ukraine better kit made the pond wonder if the bromancer had dropped the plot and strayed from his people, out and about and featured in the Graudian in March  ...

And so on, and so it was a little surreal to turn back to the bromancer, talking dirty about Faux Noise folk ...

Oh dear, and yet the mango Mussolini could have sorted it all out in 24 hours ... 

"...I'm telling you, within 24 hours – that's what I did. I became very rich by doing deals. Very rich. And you know what? Much more so than people even understand. And that's what I do," Trump said. "I would have a deal done in 24 hours from the time we started. And I would tell Zelenskyy something and I would tell Putin something, and I'd get him into a room, and I'd tell him again, and again," Trump said. He added: "I would have a deal done very quickly. And you know what? The death would stop, and the destruction would stop ..."

And you know what? Just yesterday, Trump's GOP lead grows after latest indictment, poll finds ...

Is it wrong for the pond at this point to note that the deep state has been bugging Marge, heroic freedom fighter and Vlad the impaler devotee?

Show more? Of course the pond will show more ...

But was it the government, or was it the Freedom Caucus voting her down, or was it Lauren Boebert or was it Barack Obama or was it Jewish space lasers or was it Zelensky and the Ukrainians or was it Kevin McCarthy, upon realising that Marge was setting the pace on US policy in relation to Vlad the Impaler?

Who can say, and the Graudian shed no further light on the matter by preposterously reporting a suggestion it might have been a neighbour trying to screen cast to the wrong TV ...

It's all pretty weird, but is this even weirder?

Perhaps realising that he might have strayed into the land of conspiracy theory cuckoos, the bromancer hastily averted his gaze from the lunar right infesting Faux Noise and the lizard Oz, and turned to blaming the left ...

Did  the pond just read that? Defence will only give junk, so the best way to help is to give the Ukrainians junk tanks that are likely not fit for purpose? And that's supposed to be a serious contribution to the discussion, as opposed to yet another insight into the bromancer's deeply weird tank fixation, which proposes that tanks are completely useless, so why not give completely useless tanks to the Ukrainians to uphold the international rules-based order?

Well there are flaws all over the place, and perhaps there's the odd flaw in the bromancer's ability to make sense ... no wonder the Ukrainians are finding it tough going.

And speaking of flaws, why not close by celebrating the rules-based order currently on show in the US?

In which the reptiles, and so the pond, retreat into an ancient world of Caterism and Majorism ...

 

After the high drama of the weekend, it's a total bummer to have to report to the lizard Oz for the usual herpetological studies, with the usual suspects ...

Any chance, any hope of avoiding the usual suspects, was quickly dashed by the line up below the fold ...

Two lizard Oz editorials as chaff to fill up the space? Yet more blather about the voice from George and the 'here no conflict of interest' simpleton Simon?

Not even the bromancer? The lad didn't feel the need to break a sweat or tap a keyboard in response to affairs in Russia? How will the pond know what to think? Usually the pond can steer a safe course on the basis that whatever the bromancer says, he's likely to be 80% wrong ...

Sure the reptiles wheeled in Dr Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, but he's just saying what many are saying ...

...Some possibilities to watch for include a purge of perceived opponents, especially anyone who was seen to show any support for Prigozhin’s insurrection. This could extend through all levels of Putin’s regime, including into the siloviki and the oligarchs – the elite of the security and intelligence community, and Russia’s super-wealthy business elite, which keep Putin in power in return for economic gain.
Putin may also adopt a tougher approach to the war in Ukraine, perhaps by announcing a national mobilisation, though that could then generate more opposition in the streets. The last thing Putin wants would be a popular uprising or a whiff of a “colour revolution” immediately after a military insurrection. 
Yet Putin’s goal is to wear down western resolve in supporting Ukraine in a long war, and national mobilisation would give him a much greater chance to achieve that goal.
Expect Putin to amplify his fraudulent narrative that Russia is at war with NATO and Western states, even to the extent of trying to claim the West had organised Prigozhin’s “march for justice” and ramp up nationalist diatribe against NATO that could be accompanied with more provocative behaviour along NATO’s eastern and southern periphery.
It’s also quite likely Putin will rattle nuclear sabres again, having deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus to implicitly threaten use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine or even against NATO. He needs to reinforce his image as the strongman in full control, especially given he knows Beijing is watching closely.
All this probably won’t save him if Russia is ultimately defeated in Ukraine. The insurrection may be over, but it is perhaps best seen as the beginning of the end of the Putin regime. 

After a weekend's surfing of the web, there wasn't a single idea that hadn't already been canvassed at great length ...

So there was nothing for it, the pond would have to do the Caterist rag, such an inelegant, mind deteriorating rag, full of the usual ...

As usual, the pond can't quite get over the transition of the Caterist from full blown climate science denialist to covert denialist, with the feeble cover an alleged deep concern for emissions and the transition ... and as usual, to help cover the paucity of the thinking, what's left of the lizard Oz graphics department flung in a huge snap designed to make the readership tremble in fear ...

The pond's suggestion when it comes to the Caterist is to read something else, perhaps something in the Graudian, such as the Record-breaking Texas heatwave enters third week as thousands lose power ...

It's all the more piquant when it happens in US states dedicated to core GOP climate science denialism, and after that sort of horror story, it's possible to face up to the usual 'orror serve from the 'orrible Caterist ...

What is remarkable is the casual cruelty that can be involved, as in the Graudian story Texas governor signs bill rescinding water breaks as deadly heat grips state ...

The Caterist is a child at play when it comes to whipping up a decent scare-mongering story ...as he wanders of back into ancient times, perhaps because more modern examples are a tad difficult to contemplate ...

How many times must the pond note reptile hand-wringing about coal? How many times must the reptiles include an allegedly sinister snap of windmills?

Come to think of it, how many times must the reptiles carry on about windmills? It was way back on 16th September 2014 that the Graudian reported that jolly Joe Hockey blows up again over 'appalling' windfarms ...

And back in February 2020 David Hardaker fondly remembered the arrival of the Clover Moore fraud man, the beefy boofhead with an office in Goulburn, in Revealed: Angus Taylor's long history with bad maths ... (Crikey paywall)

It was July 2013 and Angus Taylor, making his run for parliament, was the star at an anti-windfarm rally hosted by 2GB’s Alan Jones.

Standing on the front lawn of parliament, Taylor gave a brutal assessment of wind power.

He’d seen communities in his nearby electorate of Hume “tear themselves to pieces, cousins versus cousins, brothers versus brothers” over hosting wind turbines on their farms. 

But Taylor’s opposition to wind was driven not by emotion but by the cold hard numbers — the “massive subsidies” which he said the government would pay.

Each wind turbine “built today” would receive “half a million dollars or more of subsidies every year for its life”, Taylor said.

“By 2020, the impost on Australian electricity bills will amount to about $3 billion a year,” he warned.

“It will be like the proverbial boiled frog. No one will notice because slowly the water is getting warmer and warmer. Three billion dollars a year by 2020.” 

Well, it’s 2020. Angus Taylor’s day has arrived. So how accurate were his numbers?

In short they are wildly wrong — by at least $3 billion.

And so on and on, but to be fair, the beefy boofhead has provided some fine comedy moments ...Huge wind farm that Angus Taylor rejected marks its official opening ...

...Needless to say, Taylor did not attend the opening ceremony for Collector – he has not attended any wind farm-related events, except protests, such as the Anti-Wind demonstration organised by broadcaster Alan Jones nearly a decade ago.

And yet, here we are, with the Caterist doing what floodwater in quarries whisperers must do...

So much time with the donkeys, neigh-saying away ... and yet the pond still wasn't finished, because the Major had issued yet another call to arms ...

Why the reptiles are obsessed with the ABC is a deep mystery to the pond. They have enough troubles in their own backyard, but still the Major carries on, as he carries on his endless search for that missing Order of Lenin medal ...

Yes, the pond has been over this turf many times before, and still wakes up to the BBC's news service, as faithfully rebroadcast by the ABC on AM. But that's mainly because the pond can't be bothered replacing its ancient clock radio. Vulgar youffs, if they really cared, are likely to have an app which can allow them to dial up whatever they like ... why, in occasional moments of weakness, the pond will even drop in to listen to James O'Brien on LBC, when the thought of listening to talkback on Nine radio produces convulsions and revulsions ...

Never mind, the reptiles are dedicated to the proposition that the ABC should be much as it was in 1932, and the pond is old enough to remember the days when Major predecessors were advising the ABC to stick to radio, and not get involved in television ... a device designed to reduce the masses to slobbering, slavering idiocy ... and then came the full to overflowing intertubes, replete with Musky smells ...

The real reason for the reptile carry on is never far from the surface, as noted  in this APH located report on the ABC ...

After noting how the BBC's digital activities produced protests about unfair competition ... (follow the link for the footnotes), the report turned to the ABC ...

..As a result of the Graf Review, the BBC closed a number of websites identified as not being sufficiently distinctive from its commercial competitors. Following two further reviews, the BBC Trust concluded that the BBC needed to cut back on its online scale and scope and endorsed a 25 per cent budget cut to the BBC's online services. [127]

The ABC's online activity has not escaped this type of scrutiny. It too has been criticised for increasingly resorting to delivering the same fare as commercial media, and thereby interfering in the commercial marketplace. One report urged people to contemplate how the ABC was using taxpayer funds 'to soak up bandwidth, attract eyeballs away from niche media operators and poach writers on the government dime to the detriment of those trying to earn a buck setting up a new media business.' [128]

The conclusions of some have been similar to those reached in Europe—it is a waste of taxpayers' money to continue to fund public broadcasters to provide services which are already more effectively provided by the commercial sector. Eric Beecher, publisher of the online commentary site, Crikey for example, has criticised the ABC for establishing the online opinion site, The Drum. Beecher has likened the move to seeing 'tanks roll up' on commercial media territory. [129]

The opposing view of ABC online activity maintains that the Australian situation is different from Europe and the United Kingdom. While there may be justifiable criticism that the BBC and European public broadcasters have dominated their respective marketplaces, this has not been the case with the ABC. The ABC has always been expected to operate alongside commercial interests and to compete with them for audience share, and online is no different. Hence, in media analyst Margaret Simonds words:

   ... the ABC should be able to adopt any platform it wants and pay no heed to the commercial impact. While the role of a public broadcaster in the new media world is certainly up for discussion and redefinition, I have never been convinced by the notion that the ABC should abandon a platform or a form of media content merely because others are already there. [130]

Not surprisingly, the ABC's current Managing Director, Mark Scott, has claimed commercial interests are critical of the ABC’s success in using online services because they are 'threatened by the pace of change, the inflexibility of their own business models and their reluctance to invest'. [131] Scott adds:

Sometimes we hear criticism that the ABC is expanding its services at the expense of commercial competitors. But the only expansion we're interested in is that which ensures the content the public has already invested in reaches its greatest possible audience. The motive is clear, to widen the impact of the content, making it freely available so that we deliver the best possible return. [132]

Well yes, is there any business model more inflexible and quaint than the lizard Oz, and is anyone more inflexible and quaint than the Major?

Um, speaking of the AFR and profitability back in May this year... ‘Insipid’ ad market hits News Corp earnings as real estate stalls (yes, they've changed their paywall policies)

A “clearly insipid” advertising market, rising costs and lower property sales volumes dragged News Corp earnings down 11 per cent to $US320 million ($477 million) in the March quarter.

Revenue fell 2 per cent to $US2.45 billion at the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company, which owns Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, runs book publisher Harper Collins, and newspapers like The Times and The Sun in London, The New York Post and The Australian. It is also the majority owner of REA Group and pay TV service Foxtel.

A “clearly insipid” advertising market, rising costs and lower property sales volumes dragged News Corp earnings down 11 per cent to $US320 million ($477 million) in the March quarter.

Revenue fell 2 per cent to $US2.45 billion at the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company, which owns Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, runs book publisher Harper Collins, and newspapers like The Times and The Sun in London, The New York Post and The Australian. It is also the majority owner of REA Group and pay TV service Foxtel...

What about the Fox? Coat looking a little shabby ...

Foxtel’s revenue fell $US17 million to $US477 million, though increased 2 per cent accounting for currency changes. Price increases for Foxtel’s Kayo and Binge streaming services offset a decline in the number of higher-paying broadcast subscribers (those with the Foxtel set-top boxes), which fell from 1.52 million to 1.37 million over the past year. That decrease, or “churn”, was the slowest it has been since 2016 at 12.3 per cent.

What about the rags?

In the News Media segment, which includes News Corp Australia and News UK, revenue fell 3 per cent – and dropped 5 per cent in Australia alone. Adjusted for currency changes meant revenue rose 4 per cent globally and 1 per cent in Australia. EBITDA fell 13 per cent, hit by spiralling newsprint paper prices and “digital investments”.

News Corp Australia had 1.04 million subscribers, compared with 946,000 last year.

The reptiles never cottoned on to digital, in much the same way that the Major still clings to the notion of tree killer editions, perhaps so he can listen to the ABC segment on "what the papers say", as quaint as the tree killers themselves ...

And while there's been a small uptick in digital subscribers, the long absent lord alone knows why, that million is shared between the lizard Oz and each of the state based tabloids ...

It's a tricky business model, which is why the pond looks on the Major with the bemusement it feels when contemplating ancient fossils ...

Clearly the Major keenly feels for Probyn, and wonders why, when turfed out, he wasn't given a gig like the Major's ... get turfed, put out to pasture, then spend years bleating about your loyalty. Animal Farm couldn't have produced a richer irony ...

At this point the reptiles slipped in another distracting snap, this time someone from the ABC ...

How long has this been going on? Well there was Glenn Dyer in Crikey back in 2016, asking Oh, Chris. Why've you got to be so mean?,  Chris Mitchell calls us dweebs, throws shade at Hywood, generally gets it wrong (again) ...

It's like having a pet cocky that's only learned a few lines ... the same old ancient arguments trotted out again and again, only to come up against newfangled digital realities.

The pond confesses that these days it looks on remaining newsagencies with the kind of morbid fascination its aged uncle once reserved for cemeteries ... and the pond reserves for the Major ...

How tragic can it get? Even 'tragedy' can't describe the tragicomedy of the Major and prattling Polonius getting together to share their obsessive compulsive persecution complex ...

How the Major wishes the ABC would go away and leave the reptiles to their own ancient devices (perhaps a Nokia?)

 Each week the Major wishes ABC wasn't there, and yet each week it's there again today, and each week the Major wishes it would go away ... and you can keep that routine, and a column, running for years with such a simple wish ...

Meanwhile, there's an entirely different world out there, but for that you'll need to consult the immortal Rowe ...  Да