In which a serve of the bromancer is more than enough catering to the paleo reptile diet for the day ...

The reptiles did their level best this day to make things worse by making this the lead item early in the morning ...

Ley’s emissions target: not a lot of (net) zeroes

Sussan Ley has declared she will not pursue a net-zero emissions target at ‘any cost’ as she faces a backbench push to go to the next election with a vow to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

By Greg Brown and Sarah Ison

... and then followed up by putting the bromancer just below ...

Over on the extreme far right, petulant Peta was once again top of the digital reptile world ma ...

Just one quick look convinced the pond it didn't need to go there ...

Liberals beware: ‘Me too’ on renewables won’t win you elections
The problem with rolling over and supporting Labor’s energy policy is that the Liberals would become complicit in its consequences.
By Peta Credlin
Columnist

Later in the day the reptiles pumped up the volume with a splendid splash...

The pond still wasn't tempted, and what a pity this effort in The Saturday Paper lurks behind a paywall ...

Exclusive: How Abbott and Credlin control the Liberals

Jason Koutsoukis Liberal MPs reveal how the former prime minister and his close confidante have been at the centre of a string of disastrous decisions that led to the party’s stunning election loss and the collapse of the Coalition.

On the other hand, there's a rather dull exposition of the yarn on YouTube,  where the "c" word gets an outing, 'A cancer': How Abbott and Credlin control the Liberals, with this the teaser attached ...

Tony Abbott was on a layover in Dubai when he phoned Natasha Griggs – the president of the Country Liberal Party – and set off a chain reaction inside the Coalition.
Hours later, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price defected to the Liberals and a surprise leadership ticket was taking shape.
For moderates, it was another sign that the former prime minister and his confidante, Peta Credlin, are still pulling the party’s levers from the outside.
Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Jason Koutsoukis, on Tony Abbott, the shadow network steering the Liberals and why insiders say it’s a cancer that’s killing the party.

'Nuff said, but before heading off to the onion muncher's best bud and eternal bromancer, please consider this.

Evan Osnos in The New Yorker scribbling ... Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder, The greed of the new Administration has galvanized America’s aspiring oligarchs—and their opponents. (* archive link)

It's finally dawning on some that the United States is now a full-blown authoritarian banana republic ruled by a man governed by whims and fetishes.

This gives the flavour of the Osnos piece ...

..In a matter of weeks, the flood of cash swirling around the White House swamped whatever bulwarks against corruption remained in American law and culture. There have always been wealthy donors, of course. But a decade ago no one on earth had more than a hundred billion dollars. Now, according to Forbes, at least fifteen people have surpassed that mark. Since Trump first took office, Musk’s net worth has grown from roughly ten billion dollars to more than four hundred billion.
The ultra-rich have captured more of America’s wealth than even the nineteenth-century tycoons of the Gilded Age. Scholars who study inequality as far back as the Neolithic period struggle to find precedents. Tim Kerig, an archeologist who directs the Museum Alzey, in Germany, told me, “The people who built the Egyptian pyramids were probably in a less unequal society.” He suggested that today’s richest people are simply accumulating too much wealth for the system to contain. “The economic and technical evolution is much faster than the social, mental, and ideological evolution,” he said. “We had no time to adapt to all those billionaires.”
Two decades ago, Jeffrey Winters, a political-science professor at Northwestern University, started teaching a course called Oligarchs and Elites. His students at the time considered this exotic terrain. One protested, “Russia has oligarchs. America has rich people.” But over the years Winters noticed a shift in his students, accelerated by the Supreme Court’s decision, in 2010, to remove limits on political contributions. “The challenge really became convincing any of them that the United States was still a democracy,” Winters said. “They argued that oligarchs dominated everything that matters.”
Many Americans today espouse two seemingly opposed sentiments toward the very rich: resentment and aspiration. In a 2024 Harris poll, fifty-nine per cent of respondents said that billionaires are making society more unfair, and a nearly identical number said that they hoped to become billionaires themselves. There is a growing sense that only those who belong to the club can thrive. New investment vehicles allow people to copy the portfolios of Congress members, on the theory that lawmakers have an edge that the rest of us do not. The rapper Kendrick Lamar secured his status as a liberal icon by using the Super Bowl halftime show to protest the unfairness of American life. He also released an ode to “more money, more power, more freedom,” which centers on the refrain “I deserve it all.”
Winters, looking across history, believes that the U.S. has reached “peak oligarchic power,” a time when “the rules of the political process make it possible for wealth to shape the outcomes and agenda.” He added, “It’s so undeniably visible now that it’s no longer possible to say we have rich people and other countries have oligarchs.”

Of course it's not all as bad as Osnos purports. 

The American media is always holding up a blowtorch to the rampaging dinosaur and current events...

What a fine introduction to a man scribbling for one of the increasingly irrelevant minor oligarchs, but before proceeding, the pond will admit to a failing, or at least to a caveat ... 

The pond could have gone with simpleton Simon saying ...

Ley circles the wagons, with potshots at party poopers
As leader, Ley’s task was to consolidate a sense of party unity. Instead, the shadow ministry appointments only guarantee a continually divided partyroom.
By Simon Benson
Political Editor

The pond only notes this to wonder: Is he still hopelessly conflicted? Is he still hanging around with barking mad Bid?

How can he write anything about a continually divided partyroom, without a closing acknowledgement, "this writer shares a bedroom with a woman who has done much to ensure a continually divided partyroom"?

Stripped of pictures, this simpleton's hit piece was also stripped of any mention of Bid ...

The first irony of Sussan Ley’s great reunification of the Coalition is that the only partner in the marriage that apparently retains support for net zero is the Nationals.
How this will inflame the extremes on both sides doesn’t require much imagination. And considering the problem the Liberal Party has with women voters, the second contradiction is in the new Liberal leader’s decision to dump four of the most senior women from shadow cabinet.
Ley has rewarded her supporters, and the enemies she needed to, and has appeased as many transactional members as she could in a Coalition partyroom so diminished by its poll loss that few could have been left without a trophy.
She has also dumped another Victorian senator, former education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson, who had the temerity in the wake of the election defeat to challenge the party’s decision to shelve key education policies.
Considering the deals Ley had to make to shore up her leadership challenge against Angus Taylor, none of this should be a surprise.
Taylor loses Treasury but is rewarded with defence – the price for silence and compliancy.
Ley’s economic team is male-dominated. Not a single woman in a Treasury portfolio. And sidelining Jacinta Nampijinpa Price may work for a while, but the Band-Aid will eventually peel off.
Moderates dominate the leadership team, which makes Ley’s refusal to commit to a net-zero position more bizarre and reveals how spooked she remains about where the party needs to land on this issue.
The make-up of her frontbench is a highly defensive move by the new leader. She has sought to lock in her moderate support base but in the process has guaranteed there will remain a bunch of “pissed off other people”, according to one Liberal source.
“This just ensures there will be a round two in all this,” they said.
The new leader has punished one of the former Coalition’s most senior women, Jane Hume, by dumping the former finance spokeswoman to the backbench following the party’s admission that the work-from-home policy cost it votes. Hume, a senator from Victoria, has become the sacrificial lamb for a policy that had more than one author and was rubber-stamped by a leadership group that included Ley.
Queensland senator James McGrath is back in the tent, a member who claims to be conservative but is known to be a moderate organiser. Unsurprising were the elevations of Julian Leeser and Tim Wilson.
Part of the problem will be that this now constitutes a shadow ministry that represents the divisions going on inside the Coalition. The promotion of conservative West Australian senator Michaelia Cash to foreign affairs makes sense, considering Penny Wong is in the Senate. But rather than shutting down the outriders, Ley may only embolden them. This is true on the Nationals side as well.
Doubtless, things will now go quiet for a while but at some point the proverbial will hit the fan.
As leader, Ley’s task was to consolidate a sense of unity within the party. Instead, she risks institutionalising divisions. The new appointments and the equivocation on climate policy will guarantee a continually divided partyroom.
Having been papered over for three years under Peter Dutton, the divisions remain real and will become more apparent over time.
All to the delight of Anthony Albanese, who appears in a semi-permanent state of being struck in the backside by the same rainbow.

Nah, just bring on the bromancer, still bound in mental chains to his one true onion munching love ...

Amazingly, according to the reptiles, it was just a three minute read, suggesting just how little the bromancer or the rest of the hive mind cared about things ...

The header: Liberals’ bad position just got even worse, The new shadow cabinet — a weird selection of talent — is proof of the old adage: nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

Instead of featuring bromancer verbiage, the reptiles stuffed his short outing with repetitious visual distractions, all the while reminding us of the two at the centre of the follies: Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud hold a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The pond really wished it could click heels and go elsewhere ... This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The most notable feature was the way that the bromancer decided to do a simpleton Simon and dump on some and honour others, with the beefy boofhead from down Goulburn way the first of the dumpees...

This is a weird selection of a shadow ministry and one that stores up bountiful troubles for the future.
Granted that short of complete self-immolation, which in fairness the opposition tried last week, nothing that Sussan Ley’s tribe does just now will make any difference to voters who aren’t paying attention.
There’s a noble illogicality, a determined refusal to use relevant expertise in relevant areas, and overall a studied commitment to incompetence about this shadow ministry.
Angus Taylor gets defence? Taylor as opposition Treasury spokesman in the previous term of parliament was the Coalition frontbencher most unsympathetic to making a serious financial commitment to defence.
He’s been the most sceptical of any senior Liberal about the ability of defence to make meaningful use of extra money.

Oh that can't be good for the beefy boofhead, as the reptiles immediately interrupted with an AV distraction featuring ... yes, them again, Liberal Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals Leader David Littleproud have announced the new shadow ministry after the Coalition’s break-up and reunification.

As well as the beefy boofhead, when it came to taking the cash or the box, the bromancer went with the box ...

Similarly, in government he did little about resilience or supply chain security.
He was surely as discredited as Peter Dutton by the election campaign and has now probably been leapfrogged in the leadership stakes by Andrew Hastie.
Michaelia Cash gets foreign affairs? This portfolio, like Treasury, is a huge opportunity in opposition because it’s always in the news.
Kevin Rudd used it brilliantly in opposition.

Okay, okay, those with antediluvian memories will insist Bob Dyer always shouted "the money or the box", but anything for a way to relieve the tedium, as the reptiles offered a visual repetition as an interruption, Liberal Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals Leader David Littleproud have announced the new shadow ministry after the Coalition’s break-up and reunification.

Is that the best they can do?

Then it was time for the bromancer to celebrate his soft spot for Sharma ...

The Liberals have, in Dave Sharma, a superbly qualified professional diplomat, smart politically, embodies core Liberal values and knows foreign affairs intimately.
So naturally Sharma gets the smallest possible frontbench role.
All Liberal leaders seem to be instinctively hostile to colleagues who build independent media and professional profiles, which is why the great Jim Molan was never given defence.

The reptiles decided the time was right to remind the bromancer of the beefy boofhead ... Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Next came The Price is Wrong ...

A lot of these weird decisions store up certain future trouble.
Demoting and humiliating Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is surely the stupidest single thing Ley has done in her career.
Price made a mistake jumping from the Nationals to the Liberals. She put way too much faith in Taylor as a potential leader to replace Dutton.
Nonetheless, in a virtual cricket team that would struggle to field a suburban grade side, she is one of the only Coalition politicians to have scored a test century, so to speak.
Effective leadership means harnessing the talents of colleagues you might not necessarily like.
Keeping Price in Indigenous affairs would have been a kind of demotion, in that it wouldn’t have been a promotion.
But it would have ensured one of the Coalition’s only strong media and community performers remained an important national voice.

All that did was remind the pond of that Saturday Paper line ...

Tony Abbott was on a layover in Dubai when he phoned Natasha Griggs – the president of the Country Liberal Party – and set off a chain reaction inside the Coalition.
Hours later, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price defected to the Liberals and a surprise leadership ticket was taking shape.

Such an onion-munching loss as ambition o'er lept itself and fell on the other side.

Back to the bromancer, still having trouble with the new team:

Ley has effectively chosen to leave Steve Waugh in the dressing room. This is monumentally stupid, morally ungenerous and will surely end in tears.
Tim Wilson is a good promotion. Dan Tehan in energy is a good choice.
And James Paterson was one of the better performers during the last term.
But the unresolved conflict over a target for net-zero carbon emissions remains in the Liberal Party. It is bound to explode in time, and it festers across the whole Coalition, as evident in the almost equally sub-optimal National Party frontbench choices.

That was the point at which the reptiles slipped in a snap of Senator Dave Sharma. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman, long after it mattered...

It wouldn't be a bromancer piece without one astonishing bit of luddite stupidity ...

By far the most policy competent and intellectually substantial National is Queensland senator Matt Canavan. He can’t be on the frontbench because he won’t support net zero.
A Nationals partyroom with the party’s two most effective politicians, Canavan and Barnaby Joyce, on the backbench is bound for trouble.
The one benefit of a Coalition split is we would have got a serious debate on net zero.
The Canavan position is probably shared by most Liberals.

Here we go again. Some things never change in the hive mind ...

The bromancer enlisted the hastie Pastie in the lost cause ...

On ABC’s Four Corners, Hastie, the hope of the Liberal side, declared he was breaking free of net zero, and the question was why Australians couldn’t use coal and uranium if it’s morally and politically OK to export these overseas.

More on that anon, but first another visual interruption, NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Then came a reminder of how the bromancer, the reptiles at the lizard Oz, and the collectivist hive mind had managed to wreck a sensible discussion of climate science for a couple of decades ...

No doubt Hastie will toe a shadow cabinet line. But the Liberal Party is bitterly divided over this as centre right parties, like the Nationals in New Zealand, and indeed whole nations like the US, are abandoning the inherently fraudulent concept of net zero.

Um, is it wrong to point out that King Donald and his banana republic oligarchs aren't the whole nation?

And so to the closer, with a classic fudge ...

The problem is the Liberals lack the courage of their convictions – to mount a serious critique not of climate change but of the net zero target and to campaign for an alternative passionately.
But they also lack the courage of their lack of convictions – to pretend convincingly they believe in net zero.
The new shadow cabinet is proof of the old adage: nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse.

If you take climate science seriously, how on earth can you argue passionately for alternatives to net zero? 

You'd have to be some kind of frog in the grip of mindless distractions ...

And that's the reptiles done and dusted for the day.

Instead of more boiling of reptile stew, the pond decided it would give The Echnida another plug...

If you subscribe, chances are a Broelman or an infallible Pope will pop up in your inbox ...

That always puts the pond in a good mood, and there's always a read attached, and this day John Hanscombe had the pond with this line ...

The same old arguments for not acting to reduce emissions are trotted out in the Murdoch press, oblivious to the fact they sent conservative politics into the wilderness for at least two more terms. Doesn't matter what Australia does, it won't make a difference, the cardigan and cravat crew bleat in the pages of The Australian and to the dwindling audience watching Sky After Dark.

Well yes, though the pond hadn't really thought of the bromancer as being part of a cravat crew, though "cardigan" did capture the mind set ...

Never mind ...

The day arrived sickly yellow. Where the escarpment stood there was now just a faint outline. It was hard to breathe and the eyes stung. South Australia's crippling drought had delivered choking dust to the continent's east coast.
With the physical discomfort came a reminder of the unfairness. Large tracts of NSW had just been submerged by floods only to be shrouded in dust from a parched place that hadn't seen meaningful rain in months.
Offering what comfort he could, the Prime Minister told the country that we'd been warned extreme weather would become more common and more intense with the changing climate. It certainly seems that way.
What we knew as one-in-100-year floods recur every few years. Lismore's turn in 2022 becomes Taree's in 2025. The pattern of cold fronts, which usually bring winter rain to South Australia and western parts of Victoria, has changed, with those fronts held at bay by high pressure systems we normally associate with summer.
Those who suffer the worst of the climate's caprice are typically farmers and regional Australians. In one week, we saw dairy farmers in tears for very different reasons. Those who had lost stock to floods and those who could not feed theirs because their pastures had turned to dust thanks to drought.
And in the midst of this double-edged sword of suffering, the very people who claim to represent these Australians - the Nationals - are still quibbling over climate.
Barnaby Joyce demands to know the cost of the commitment to net zero by 2050 while his party's constituents count the cost of not acting on climate - a last hurrah as he finds himself relegated to the nosebleed seats up the back of a depleted and demoralised opposition alongside the other other former deputy PM Mickmack McCormack.

That reminded the pond how that inimitable pair had been lost to the bromancer and to simplistic Simon ...

Well done Tamworth, once the centre of the known universe, now barely a flickering match ... but what an inspiration for the immortal Rowe to invoke a horse's arse ...

Then came that line, worth repeating in context ...

The same old arguments for not acting to reduce emissions are trotted out in the Murdoch press, oblivious to the fact they sent conservative politics into the wilderness for at least two more terms. Doesn't matter what Australia does, it won't make a difference, the cardigan and cravat crew bleat in the pages of The Australian and to the dwindling audience watching Sky After Dark.

And then Handscombe came to a point which - if you happened to accept climate science and the need to curtail emissions - would have given the bromancer, and other reptiles, and the opposition, a handy stick with which to bash the government ...

Australia is a huge exporter of fossil fuels. The stuff might not be burnt here but it still contributes to global emissions. Arguing that it's beyond our control is a bit like saying a drug dealer can't be held responsible for how the product they sell is used. In other words, poppycock.
Which brings us to the Albanese government and its rank hypocrisy in giving preliminary approval for extending the life of the north west gas project off the WA coast for another 45 years.
Here's how Greg Bourne described the decision: "They've just approved one of the most polluting fossil fuel projects in a generation, fueling climate chaos for decades to come. This single project will unleash more than four billion tonnes of climate pollution. It undoes the good work they've done on cutting climate pollution and betrays the mandate Australian voters just gave them."
Bourne is BP's former north west shelf manager, who now devotes his time to advocating for a transition away from fossil fuels.
"It is rubbish to say that Australia needs this gas when the lion's share is marked for export and none of it will be used on the east coast," he says. "It's bad for the climate, bad for Australia's economy, and completely out of step with where the world is heading."
The decision to extend the project until 2070 is grotesque for its timing alone.
Barnaby Joyce is at least consistent in his climate lunacy. But for the PM to one day say, hand on heart, natural disasters are the price we're paying for climate change and then approve a major contributor to it the next beggars belief.

Well yes, but thanks to decades of climate science denialism, the coalition is completely clueless when it comes to using climate science to give the government a hard time ...

Given the chance to sound sensible, they immediately revert to bromancer and Barners lunacy, and the chance is always lost lost...

Was there any upside at all to this relentless bout of reptile navel gazing?

Yes indeedy ...

At least the pond avoided this pathetic attempt to justify mass starvation and ethnic cleansing ...

A chaotic start but new Gaza aid plan will weaken Hamas
You may be tempted to think the new US-backed aid system in Gaza is yet another disaster to befall Palestinians, given the criticism which international agencies have hurled at it. Think again.
By Cameron Stewart
Chief International Correspondent

Think again? That implies some thinking was done in the first place ...

In which the Riddster and Dame Slap take to the stage, with a cameo appearance by Dashing Donners ...

 

The pond agonised about how to work in the quote "We are Athens. They are Rome. We will prevail", a sentiment currently doing the rounds in elbows-up Canada, and gave up, defeated.

The reptiles might be part of an empire, but at best it's faux Roman, a minor sword and sandal show, but as the election results indicated, inclined to impotence down under. It's only real work now is done by its US branch ...and that's more the work of slave than empire, diligently sucking the toes and caressing the feet of King Donald I.

The pond also never thought it would get around to copying out the line JD Vance is the Republican party’s Honky Tonk Man.

But there it was in Jonathan V. Last's JD Vance and the Honky Tonk Man, Why MAGA's thirstiest try-hard (probably) won't get the brass ring.

If Honky Tonk Man means nothing to you, chances are you weren't around for the glory days of pro wrestling.

The pond is content just to just note that there's a lot to be said for Last comparing the klown karnival in the White House to kayfabe routines. It's a lot closer than Rome, excepting the likes of Caligula and Nero and some later ones like the Caracalla brothers.

On the upside, these are excellent distractions from Sven Teske being determinedly gloomy in The Conversation in Earth is heading for 2.7°C warming this century. We may avoid the worst climate scenarios – but the outlook is still dire.

But it's Wednesday, and so the pond should retreat from general reading to herpetology studies ...

Nothing to see there, and what a relief that the reptiles ran with unrealised gains tax as the lead fear and loathing item. 

The pond had tucked away a note from a member of the Nine Kelly gang, in case there was another bout of super hysteria, but will use it anyway. 

It came in Albanese should consider what he might come to regret (archive link):

...Unfortunately, the Coalition is not the only part of the political class guilty of unreflective haste. The amount of attention being given to Labor’s superannuation changes by some parts of the media is astounding given how small its impact is. The attempts to make this an important question of principle are frankly embarrassing. The tax isn’t indexed? Income tax isn’t indexed. We should never tax unrealised gains? We already do. This isn’t to say it can’t be calmly discussed or even changed. Just that the arguments are wildly, pompously overblown.
Again, this affects a tiny group of people. The best argument the scaremongers have is that in three decades, one in 10 taxpayers will be affected.
This is important, because governments should be able to do things based on a reasonable discussion of how many people will lose out, not based on scare campaigns by self-interested parties trying to convince everybody they will lose out one day.

And that's why the pond is done and dusted with sundry reptile tax and super campaigns.

"Some parts of the media" is of course code for the lizard Oz, but given the amount of hysteria and deep anxiety on view in the AFR, it also embraces sections of the Nine media. 

The pond has no idea why journalists feel compelled not to name names, as the pond wandered off to the extreme far right to see who was top of the world, ma ...

Ah, the Riddster... haven't heard from him for a long time, but what a relief to be reminded that he still knows how to sound like an abject idiot.

The pond half-expected a standard bout of "how lovely is the reef, how wrong is climate science" as a way of putting that pesky Teske chap in his place ...

How wrong was the pond ...

... and yet what a relief, because the reptiles clocked Bob Katter for chancellor? Harvard shows it’s time for new leaders on our campuses, It’s time to shake up the governing bodies of Australian campuses to better reflect local communities as a mere three minute read. 

The pond could knock that over in a doddle, especially as the reptiles alerted their hive mind to the content of those illustrations, Donald Trump’s move on Harvard is a wake-up call for our universities.

Take it away Riddster ...

The fight between President Donald Trump and Harvard University raises the question of how bad universities must be before governments should act. This question is even more important for Australian universities, which are largely funded by government. Where is the balance between an independent university system and the right of the government to control how our taxes are spent?
Trump has recently withdrawn the right of Harvard to host foreign students after previously suspending government funds for research. His administration cited Harvard’s racist and sexist hiring and enrolment policies (diversity, equity and inclusion), and rampant anti-Semitism.

Strange, the pond thought it was all about a personal feud ... you know ...

Put it another way ... Barron Trump’s Alleged Ivy League Rejections Spark Policy Firestorm from President Trump:

As President Donald Trump begins the second year of his return to the White House, a curious and highly personal controversy is quietly fueling one of his most aggressive policy crusades to date: the defunding of America’s elite universities. At the center of the storm is his youngest son, Barron Trump, and a series of persistent online claims that he was denied admission to multiple Ivy League institutions.
While no official documentation has confirmed or denied the alleged rejections, the rumor mill surrounding Barron’s college plans has gained serious traction—and appears to be colliding directly with federal education policy under President Trump’s renewed administration.
From NYU to National Headlines
Earlier this month, the Associated Press confirmed that 18-year-old Barron Trump would attend New York University’s Stern School of Business this fall source. While NYU is one of the top business programs in the country, its selection raised eyebrows, given Barron’s public profile and the Trump family’s historic emphasis on prestige.
Within days, social media platforms erupted with claims—none officially verified—that Barron had applied to Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton, only to be rejected. Political commentators, pro-Trump influencers, and conspiracy theorists quickly coalesced around a narrative: that these elite institutions deliberately turned away the president’s son in a politically motivated act of defiance.
President Trump’s Retaliatory Proposal
Whether or not the rumors are true, President Trump wasted no time escalating the issue from gossip to governance. In a fiery speech delivered from the White House Rose Garden, he proposed redirecting $3 billion in federal funding away from Ivy League universities, singling out Harvard by name. The money, he said, would instead be funneled into trade schools, vocational programs, and “patriotic American institutions.”
    “This isn’t about one school. This is about a broken system. These Ivy League schools are filled with radicals, antisemitism, and open hatred of American values,” President Trump declared. “Why are we subsidizing failure? Why are we rewarding hate?”

Rewarding hate? 

Always with the projection, because there's never been a better or more determined hater and hate monger, but back to the Riddster being very silly, and perhaps a tad bitter about his own fate ...

But the list of university crimes is far longer than this, and Harvard is little worse than most Australian universities. Consider the following incomplete list of additional grievances.
Visa scamming using the lure of permanent residency to encourage overseas student enrolments; grossly misrepresenting the economic benefits of overseas students by exaggerating how much they spend while in Australia; rampant cheating even before the advent of AI; gross over-representation of academics of left-wing, or far-left, political persuasion; staggering inefficiency, with over half of university staff being administrators; engaging in kangaroo court disciplinary procedures against students who may fall short of woke ideals; accepting students with inadequate prerequisites, failing them, and putting them into debt with no degree.

Ah, kangaroo courts. It still lingers and the pond notes the mention of "woke".

The reptiles decided to interrupt with a burst of unlovely meter maid Rita ... Sky News host Rita Panahi says Harvard University is in a “world of pain” as US President Donald Trump pushes to revoke the college’s right to enrol international students. Last week, a US judge blocked the Trump Administration from barring foreign students from Harvard. “The Trump Administration is not letting up on holding the college responsible for its discriminatory practice, for its tolerance of antisemitism on its campus,” Ms Panahi said.

Back to the Riddster ranting, or trying to troll ...

The most important grievance – enforcing a ruthless woke ideology – is most dangerous in teacher education degrees. 

Sorry, that's the second mention. The pond had hoped to let it slide, but the pond is under contractual obligation - whenever that word appears, the pond must feature this ...

Back to the hapless Riddster, doing his best to sound like a fuckhead and still clearly feeling the pain ... (and no bonus marks for guessing that "zealots" would also be trotted out, though sadly the Riddster wasn't up to "the long march through the institutions" and so settled for indoctrination) ...

Students must survive up to five years of indoctrination. This means new schoolteachers either have an incredibly high threshold to pain, and can endure years of woke lectures, or are fully signed-up, far-left zealots. They go on to teach our children. Could anything be more damaging to society?
So far, aside from Trump, there has been no attempt to rectify the failing university system in the Anglosphere. There are a couple of things that can be done easily. The first is to take the crucial teacher education role away from universities and set up new teacher training institutions. Start again – outside the universities.
The second is more fundamental. The solution lies in the composition of the university councils, which state governments can influence. University councils are like the boards of directors of companies. In the end, it is these councils that are responsible for the woeful situation at universities.
Many universities are set up under specific Acts of a state parliament – especially the newer universities. For example, most Queensland universities fall under their own Act of parliament, which dictates how the council will be selected. The government has the ability to select many of those who sit on the councils, and could change the Act in order to stack the councils with people of an appropriate disposition.
A state government could experiment with reform by changing the councils of a couple of universities. I would suggest starting with James Cook University, my alma mater, in North Queensland.

Ah, so it is personal and now to get very silly, with a classic form of IPA trolling ...

This is an area where more than 75 per cent of people voted no to the racist voice, but we have a university that behaves as if it serves the inner city.
Let us have some true diversity – a university that has a different philosophical bent, driven by a board empowered to hold the senior management of the university to account.
So, who would be the chancellor, the head of the council? Traditionally, chancellors are usually pedestrian ex-politicians, judges or diplomats. But a North Queensland university, which is going to be different, needs a different sort of chancellor. Let us have some fun – why not Bob Katter? He is more in tune with North Queensland than most council members, and even ticks some diversity boxes. The only Lebanese-descended chancellor who owns a large gun.

Just to reinforce the comedy, the reptiles slipped in a couple of snaps ... Bob Katter. Picture: Brendan Radke, Noel Pearson. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

It takes considerable skill to do a decent, dinkum troll, and alas and alack, the Riddster isn't up to much, reaching peak risibility by reaching into the closet, and dusting the moths off, and dragging out 95 year old Blainers...while with a commendably straight face purporting to be "completely serious":

And, being completely serious, why not invite the heads of QCoal and Bowen Coking Coal to join the council? To support the agricultural industries in the north, we could have the chair of one of the sugar-growing organisations. And to further help the mining industry upon which North Queensland relies, invite geologist and climate realist Ian Plimer.
Warren Mundine and Geoffrey Blainey could challenge the extreme ideology in the humanities departments. So would Noel Pearson, who hails from near Cooktown, and has annoyed more university education “experts” than anybody. The arguments in the council chamber about the pros and cons of the voice would finally put some genuine intellectual spark back into university life.
Perhaps some of this is a joke. But is there not a place for just one of the 30-odd universities in this country to pursue the interests of its region? Just one that partially reflects the views of a long-suffering sensible majority? Just one to break away from the sameness of the others?
And it can be done quite easily. Stack the university councils. That’s something Trump cannot do to Harvard.
Peter Ridd is an adjunct fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.

Oh dear, is there some reward for having to struggle through what passes for an attempt at IPA humour?

Here,  have a Golding as a reward for making it to the end, with the 'toon featuring a host of potential chancellors ...

That circus metaphor never gets tired.

Speaking of Noel Pearson, his name also intruded on Dame Slap's rant of the day ...

The header: Culture wars? The Left knows how to fight those battles too, Noel Pearson is right on reforming our kids’ education but wrong on the ‘obsession’ with culture wars.

The caption: Noel Pearson. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

The 'click heels' clause: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

The reptiles assured the pond it was an onerous five minute read, and the first thing the pond must note is an epic fail by Dame Slap.

Not a single mention of "woke" or some kind of "zealotry". 

Sheesh, must the hard yards be left to the Riddster?

In pursuit of the kind of even-handed, impartial reporting the ABC is statutorily required to undertake but rarely does, this newspaper last weekend gave considerable space to controversial views put by Professor Clare Wright at the Sydney Writers Festival. The professor of history at La Trobe University has for many years complained about the way we, as a nation, teach and commemorate our history.
In particular, Wright dislikes what she regards as an overemphasis on the Anzac story at the expense of what is known as the frontier wars. Wright is quite capable of the odd incendiary remark. When she told her audience at the festival there was “a kind of brainwashing” about being told that “Australia’s true national identity, and the birth of the nation happened at Gallipoli”, she would have had her inner-city audience politely putting down their chai lattes to applaud.
Many others, who don’t attend such festivals, might have been offended. However, as this newspaper editorialised on Saturday, “fair enough; history is always contested ground and Professor Wright has a case to make”.
It would be a fine thing if the magnanimity of our editorial writers were shared more widely. The ability to disagree yet give the opposing view both space and respect is something seen too rarely, especially on the left.

How singularly benign, how wonderfully tolerant, how deeply magnanimous, and to show how serious the reptiles were, they slipped in a snap of the villainess ... La Trobe University History Professor Clare Wright. Picture: Susan Papazian

On with the incredibly tolerant, all encompassing, veritably Whitmanesque Dame Slap

While Wright is free to lob her grenades, too often those who politely return serve are viewed as the perpetrators of some kind of “history war” raging in Australia. There is no war. Simply a debate, heated at times, but still, we are dealing with ideas. As esteemed historian Geoffrey Blainey said in 2015: “Controversy, not war, will continue for a long time to come. It is in the nature of history and of most intellectual activities, and the more so in a nation where the main strands of history – ­Aboriginal and European – are utterly different.”
There is something Trumpian about those on the left who brand defenders of mainstream views as warriors – be it history warriors or culture warriors. It is not unlike Donald Trump labelling Ukraine as the cause of its war with Russia.

Sorry, was there a hint of disenchantment in that mention of "Trumpian" and even a hint that one of his many lies might be ... a lie.

Say what, Dame Slap is attempting a revisionist take on King Donald? 

Sorry, whenever Dame Slap seems to forget her devotion, her excitement, her cultural warrior bloodlust, the pond is contractually obligated to run ...

Back to a disapproving cluck from the MAGA cap wearer about Trumpian behaviour ...

History is not the only battleground that could do with less Trumpian behaviour. 

Uh huh...

And now back into Dame Slap's bubble, though perhaps without the MAGA cap as TACO Trump scores bigly ...

Sadly, education is another field full of unnecessarily adversarial behaviour. One expects big political fights about taxation, energy, industrial relations, indeed, about Australia’s place in the world. But why on Earth is education infected with kneejerk political responses? If we could extract the politics from the debates, sound education reform would have happened long ago.
I raise this after reading Noel Pearson’s otherwise sensible piece at the weekend about reforming the national curriculum, and other parts of the education system.
There is, one hopes, much agreement – even if it is a long time coming – that returning to basics is exactly what is needed in Australian classrooms. The evidence is in. Our children are doing poorly compared to their peers in other countries. Our children have suffered for too long because politics has infected debates about how best to teach children to read, and how to add, subtract and multiply. These foundational skills can set a child up for a life of learning and achievement, through their years from primary to high school – and beyond. Who doesn’t want this for the current and future generations of Australian children?
But it was disappointing to see Pearson take a silly potshot at me. “Her obsession with culture wars means she attributes too much to the ‘cross-curriculum priorities’ mandated by the Australian Curriculum,” he wrote. “In the scheme of things that are problems with the national curriculum, this is trivial.”

Say what? That's it? That's the "potshot" that got Dame Slap all hot and bothered?

A prize maroon blathering "back to basics" ... and it's "trivial" that offends her?

Trust a narcissist to get sore... 

It was just one mention and best read in context:

...Remember the enthusiasm for “feedback” that the Grattan Institute banged the drum on? And “targeted teaching”?
These are not bad in themselves but they are diversions from what must be the real focus: effective teaching. Grattan came late to explicit instruction and still has no idea about Direct Instruction.
Mona Mourshed was the genius behind McKinsey’s 2010 playbook for school system improvement. Clare should bring the brain of this Egyptian-American based in Washington to bear on the most difficult aspect of the Australian context: the ragtag collection of systems and subsystems that make up Australian schools.
No one knows more about how the international evidence on school systems improvement interplays with context. Her lackeys at McKinsey should provide pro bono support, because she makes them shine.
My dream team would be Mourshed and the former chief executive of schools in the Canberra-Goulburn Catholic Diocese, the engineer turned school reform champion, Ross Fox. Fox led a revolution in this subsystem of 58 Catholic schools, centred on effective teaching. He achieved a step change in subsystem performance within the time-frame evidenced by Mourshed: five years.
It was Mourshed who first made clear in a 2007 McKinsey report that there was only one lever for school and system improvement: effective instruction. This is what lifts schools. Every thing we do must support the goal of improving instruction.
Fox has left Canberra-Goulburn. I fear for the progress they made. I know how easily ignorance or malignity can unravel progress. But it means he’s available if you want someone to drive a playbook, Minister Clare. Mourshed is the brains though, she wrote the playbook.
Which brings me to a last diversion. Janet Albrechtsen is right to focus on the role of curriculum but her focus is off. Her obsession with culture wars means she attributes too much to the “cross-curriculum priorities” mandated by the Australian Curriculum. In the scheme of things that are problems with the national curriculum, this is trivial.
Tudge was similarly diverted by cultural issues. In fact Liberal governments had 10 years to fix whatever problems they say they have with the curriculum. Didn’t Kevin Donnelly and others undertake reviews on their behalf at verious (sic, as the lizard Oz tries to outdo the Graudian) times?
Of more substantial concern is the parlous comparison between the standards mandated by the Australian Curriculum and curriculums in other countries. Jensen’s 2023 benchmarking report sets out a terrible comparison of Australia’s expectations of science learning against other countries. Australia has the lowest expectations, far below the US, Singapore and Britain. If the same applied to other subjects then this is a major problem for Australia.
What you teach is intimately linked to how you teach. We have to fix the how of pedagogy and the what of curriculum in order to improve instruction. Let’s see, we wasted the first 20 years. I’m sure we can waste another two decades doing the same thing. We should expect the same results.
Noel Pearson is founder of the Cape York Partnership, director of Good to Great Schools Australia and a director of Fortescue.

Sad really, to see Noel still lurking in the hive mind, and getting into tiffs with Dame Slap.

Of course it's all in code. You have to read Dame Slap regularly to realise that she spends a goodly amount of time bashing difficult, uppity blacks, and perhaps that's why Noel was feeling a tad miffed.

Onwards, and ever downwards, and there seems to be a lot more IPA in the lizard Oz these days (whatever happened to Dame Slap's short stint there?)...and so it came to pass that again unlovely meter maid Rita did the AV distraction honours, IPA school program director Colleen Harkin has called out the "political activism" she claims is rife within Australia's mathematics curriculum. Speaking to Sky News host Rita Panahi, Ms Harkin highlighted the stark contrast between Australia’s approach and that of Singapore, which has one of the top-ranked educational systems in the world. “The political activism within the curriculum is rife and that's how we end up with a document that is unwieldy and unusable and the amount of extra work that it puts on teachers is extraordinary,” Ms Harkin told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

Around this point, the pond began to wonder just how much time Dame Slap had spent in an actual classroom ...

The pond suspects not much ...

Pearson has every right – and a responsibility as a trailblazing reformer of education – to challenge me if I get things wrong. That is very different from misrepresenting me. I made it clear that the problems with the curriculum are “far deeper” than the shallow imposition of cross-curriculum priorities in the national curriculum. But placing basket weaving in a maths class to satisfy misguided “cross-curriculum priorities” does scream how bad things are.
There is no more important priority than learning how to read, write and do maths. Australian children are doing poorly in all three areas because educators have shown little interest, over decades, in evidence-based teaching methods. The deeply flawed national curriculum is just the canary in the coalmine. If the curriculum does not focus on the basics, the path to success is a more difficult one for children.
Some of the problems were exposed by Pearson: the Gonski review was a waste of time because it was about money, not teaching skills. Dollars won’t teach kids how to read; well-trained teachers will do that. So, don’t we want to find, and implement, the methods that work? This is a no-brainer.
Just because we disagreed vehemently over the voice – which was, after all, a political project – should not mean that Pearson and I cannot agree on evidence-based teaching.

A political project? Talk about being obsessed with the culture wars ... talk about being an aged culture warrior and starting to feel her age and getting snippy about it ...

I am no more obsessed with “culture wars” than Pearson. I want every Australian child to benefit from a rich and robust teaching culture in our schools – if they can’t read and add up from an early age, the odds are against them.
Ever since I started writing, I have been subjected to this hoary old technique. To diminish those of us who challenge and test so-called progressive ideas, we are labelled culture warriors. If you push back against the left’s censorship, you are labelled a cultural warrior. If you are concerned about cancel culture, you’re a culture warrior. If you challenge the left’s takeover of education, you are labelled a cultural warrior. If you disagree with radical trans activism, you are a culture warrior.
The motivation is plain as day, to taint what opponents say. Better still, if only we would shut up so that the poorly named “progressives” can have their way on whatever cultural front they happen to be fighting that day.
The left has been playing that game for years. Pearson should be bigger than joining in that racket.

It is, of course, projection. Dame Slap has been playing the game for years. That's how she earns her living, that's how she scored handy board positions ...

An essential ingredient is no self-awareness and no sense of shame ...

I can look after myself. But throwing gratuitous potshots won’t help people of good faith, right across the political spectrum, work together for the ultimate good of improving how and what children are taught.
To that end, may I suggest that Labor Education Minister Jason Clare (and Pearson) read an upcoming paper called “Academic and cultural orphans: the legacy of policy reforms in Australian school education”, by Dr Deidre Clary, Dr Kevin Donnelly and Dr Fiona Mueller.

Hang on, hang on, there's an unexpected treat, a mention of Dashing Donners. 

Now there's another old pond favourite, sadly long ago sent into exile by the lizard Oz reptiles. He went off to the tabloids where he flourishes, assiduously promoting his output on X and with his very own eponymous website ...

Forget the X, savour the meaty goodness ...

The pond's already done the "woke" routine, so have another example of Donners ...

Splendid stuff, and so spending a moment with Dame Slap hasn't been a complete waste of time ...

And so to a few last words from the aging culture warrior as she tries to inject life into yet another think tank, newly minted for your pleasure ...

The paper is produced by the Page Research Centre, a not-for-profit organisation with a focus on regional and rural Australia. It is loosely aligned with the National Party. Some will agree, some will disagree, with the proposals. But let’s put petty politics aside; any disagreement should be based on the merits, rather than on the messenger. The paper, to be released next month, calls for an overhaul of education that is squarely driven by evidence, by teachers and principals – rather than the same bodies and vested interests that have overseen decades of educational failure.
When critics focus on who is talking, rather than what they are saying, they may be more prone to misrepresent what is being put forward. And patently, that gets us nowhere. Given what is at stake, it’s high time that enmities and politics be set aside.

Set aside enmities and politics? Nah, it's in her blood ...and her scribbling ... and just because she's realised the Cantaloupe Caligula is an inveterate liar still lands us in nowheresville.

And now as the Voice has been mentioned, time to close with a relevant Wilcox...

In which the pond features a quartet of reptiles, with Lloydie of the Amazon a chirpy violin, the bromancer a grave cello, Dame Groan as a double bass, and a grey man as the nuking viola ... (not your average quartet!)

 

A busy day today, with the pond hoping to cram no less than four reptiles into its portmanteau, with none of them featuring mad van drivers ...

It was over on the extreme far right that the pond's real challenge lay ...

Dame Groan, the bro, a grey desire to keep on nuking ... and in view of the ongoing absence of Major Mitchell, a special off-sheet treat from Lloydie of the Amazon ...

It's been so long that the pond almost forgot Lloydie was there, and yet it was only a two minute distraction. 

Lloydie's outing was a companion piece to another grum green reptile moment ...

GRIM WARNING
Electricity bills to surge amid ‘going green’ alarm
A sustained period of high electricity bills amid a cost-of-living crisis adds to concerns over the cost of Australia’s green energy roll-out.
By Colin Packham and Perry Williams

Thanks Col, thanks Perry, but if the pond wants grum, it'll always go the Lloydie, especially as it's only two minutes.

Two minutes! Or so the reptiles timed it. It's a wonder Lloydie bothered to get out of bed ...

The header promised the usual FUD: Future of power uncertain and expensive, The big take-out from recent developments in the nation’s energy transformation is that all roads point to rising costs and fresh questions about the blueprint for change.

Yet again a terrifying snap of whale killers designed to produce fear and loathing in the hive mind ... Households in NSW face the steepest increase in electricity prices, up to $280, while Queensland household bills are projected to increase by as much as $77 and South Australia as much as $71. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Is Zoe sent out on endless wind farm patrol so that there's an endless supply of whale killer images for the lizard Oz?

On with patented Lloydie FUD ...

Death, taxes and higher electricity bills for households and businesses are the new certainties of life. The big take-out from recent developments in the nation’s energy transformation is that all roads point to rising costs and fresh questions about the blueprint for change.
The Energy Market Regulator on Monday confirmed that households will pay up to an additional $280 a year for electricity.
The increase is because of higher prices in the wholesale market caused by lower-than-expected supplies of renewable energy and less reliability from a rapidly deteriorating coal-power fleet.
Households in NSW face the steepest increase, up to $280, while Queensland household electricity bills are projected to increase by as much as $77 and South Australia as much as $71.
Australian Energy Council chief executive Louisa Kinnear says price pressures will continue as a result of the energy transition, with the costs of the poles and wires as well as retail costs all contributing to price rises.
This follows confirmation by the Australian Energy Market Operator last week that the cost of building transmission lines had gone up by up to 55 per cent.
As a result, AEMO says it will investigate whether planned transmission projects that have not been committed are still financially worthwhile.
More attention will now be paid to how to use spare capacity from household rooftop solar systems and batteries, otherwise known as Consumer Energy Resources.
AEMO admits it is a big challenge.
While AEMO’s 2024 system plan had a focus on five national market regions with about 300 bulk supply points, the 2026 system plan will for the first time consider low-voltage networks. This will involve more than 500,000 low-voltage transformer sites and the CER connected to more than nine million customers.
The feedback from power utilities has been informative.
In April, Transgrid said assumptions that Virtual Power Plants will experience the same level of availability and flexibility to respond to market conditions as an equivalently sized utility-scale battery energy storage system are not reasonable.
Households were unlikely to accept that their assets may be accessed frequently and run very hard because household solar and batteries are primarily investments intended to provide utility and value to consumers rather than the market, Transgrid said.
In March, Queensland power utilities Ergon Energy and Energex gave a similar warning.
“We are cautious of the approach to model customer behaviour based on economically rational models, as we consider most CER investments do not conform to these modelling outcomes,” the utilities said.
“For example, based on our anecdotal experience, AEMO’s assumptions regarding the level of battery energy storage systems uptake supported by Virtual Power Plants may be overstated.”
In short, the costs of intermittent generation and distribution are rising.
The reliability of coal is declining. The costs of transmission lines risk becoming uneconomic. The industry is grappling with its social licence in rural and remote areas.
The alternative of taking power from rooftop solar and batteries fits with government plans – and industry hopes – for new household subsidies but has many challenges that are known and many yet to be discovered.
The future is higher costs and less certainty.

That effort deserves a 'toon, celebrating Lloydie standing with Little to be Proud of ...

And so to the Middle East with the bromancer ...

The pond regrets that it must pass over the apologist humbug offered up in this outing

Wrong target for PM’s Gaza aid fury
Anthony Albanese’s condemnation of Israel’s efforts to relieve the aid situation in Gaza as ‘completely unacceptable’ reflects an extremely troubling oversimplification of a deeply complex issue.
by Arsen Ostrovsky

Completely rich, given Head of US-backed Gaza aid group resigns, saying he will not abandon 'principles' ...

While the plight of civilians in Gaza is deeply concerning, it is imperative that Australia’s response is informed by a comprehensive understanding of the factors at play and Hamas’s exacerbation of the suffering. Acknowledging the complexities and engaging in balanced diplomacy will better serve the goals of peace and humanitarian relief.
Arsen Ostrovsky is an Australian-Israeli human rights lawyer.

Ain't nothing complex about starvation and ethnic cleansing...

So it was on to the bro, thereby allowing the pond to honour a correspondent's link, Greg Sheridan piles on the Murdoch delusions.

How it gladdens the pond's heart to see other herpetologists at work (many ta's for that one), and now on with the piling up of more bromancer delusions ...

The header: Is a new conflict in the Middle East just around the corner?, Israelis understand they can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program from the air. But they believe they can hit ‘choke points’ in the program and set it back several years.

The caption: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Picture: Pool Photo via AP

The futile attempt to escape ethnic cleansing and mass starvation: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

As he often is, the bro was in war monger mode this day, but he was also a little hesitant and uncertain. So many possible wars, so little time:

Israel is likely to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities within the next six months. A fascinating piece in the well-regarded US conservative journal, the Middle East Forum, argues an Israeli attack is imminent. Sources in Israel think that assessment overblown. They emphasise Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will be careful about negotiations the Trump administration is having with Iran over a possible agreement.
The MEF reports that the US Defence Intelligence Agency believes Iran could produce enough nuclear weapons-grade material for one nuclear bomb within a week, if it decided to. After Iran twice attacked Israel with missile volleys, Israel responded by wiping out much of Iran’s most sophisticated air defence capabilities.
Therefore, there’s a certain logic to Israel undertaking a strike now, or soon. The longer it waits, the more Iran will rebuild air defences, which could enact a serious toll on Israeli planes and aircrew. Israelis understand they can’t destroy Iran’s nuclear program from the air. But they believe they can hit “choke points” in the program and set it back several years.
Israeli military action has vastly reduced the potential of Iranian proxies, notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Houthis in Yemen, to provide significant military support to Iran in the event of Israel-Iran conflict. Similarly, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the subsequent destruction of most of Syria’s conventional armed forces by the Israeli Defence Force, has removed from the board Iran’s single most important state ally in the Middle East. For some Israelis, therefore, it’s now or never.
However, the possible costs of an Israeli strike are also enormous. Although the Israeli government will ultimately act independently to protect its existential interests, everything depends on Donald Trump. An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is the most predicted, and most postponed, event in the Middle East. Over the past decade or more I have on a handful of occasions been told by people at the very top of the international system that an Israeli strike would shortly take place. To be clear, I’ve never been told that by US or Israeli officials. Nor was I ever given a specific date. But my interlocutors were people at the very top of national systems, who you would expect to know of the likelihood of such a strike. I’ve concluded, and there has been some limited reporting to this effect, that on several different occasions Israel decided it would strike the Iranian facilities but was talked out of it at the last minute by the Americans.

Once again right from the reptile nerve centre came a bonus AV distraction, “The Trump administration is demanding zero enrichment, and that could lead to the collapse of the nuclear talks.”

The bro still knows how to recycle King Donald talking points ...

Barack Obama got an extremely weak deal with the Iranians, which recognised the legitimacy of the Iranian nuclear industry, accepted in principle that Iran could enrich uranium up to a certain point, and had a quite limited duration, so that after the agreement expired Iran faced very few restrictions.
In his first term, Trump withdrew from this deal and imposed heavy sanctions on Iran. Sanctions are Trump’s preferred tool of coercion, almost his preferred tool of statecraft, and they’re often quite effective. In this case they didn’t markedly change Iran’s behaviour but did deprive it of funds. Joe Biden, in one of his countless Middle East miscalculations, greatly softened the sanctions in pursuit of a deal with Iran, which went absolutely nowhere. Now it really seems as if a lot of factors are converging to create a fateful moment of truth.
The Trump administration has been trying one last time to negotiate a full deal with Iran. If it gives up its nuclear program and stops sponsoring terrorists, Iran can be released from all sanctions and, if it wants, welcome US and other international investment. The Iranians, under a lot of pressure, look as though they would enter a deal in which they meaninglessly promise to stop sponsoring terrorism, and also promise to keep their nuclear program at enrichment levels well below that needed for a nuclear weapon. That’s the real sticking point. The Israelis, and Trump in some of his statements, have said the Iranians must abandon all uranium enrichment. This is a perfectly reasonable position. The Iranians time without number have threatened the total physical destruction of Israel. Their official state ideology is one of extreme Islamism, in which both the US and Israel figure as entities of eternal evil, which the Islamic revolution has a duty to destroy.

Along with all that came a snap of King Donald himself, US President Donald Trump. Picture: AP Photo

The pond has no idea how the bromancer thinks he knows what's going down in the King's court. 

The King is certifiably as mad as a cut snake, as shown in this recent all caps effort ...

Imagine if Fidel or Hugo or Morales or Correa or Ortega had come out with that sort of rant. They'd be labelled barking mad banana repuglicans of the South American dictator kind ...

Speaking of a little tea break and biccies away from the bro, the pond couldn't help but notice this splash ...

The Texas Tribute is up to speed on the fuss, and the pond thought the least it could do was help out with an updated suggestion for what would work in classrooms ...

And God spake all these words, saying,

2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of the United States, out of the house of bondage and into the house of thy Lord, thy Donald.
3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, save the Cantaloupe Caligula, who is, to be fair, a much biglier God then me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, save images graven of the Cantaloupe Caligula, which are a fair and stunning likeness, and who is both a son and a holy ghost to me and a key member of the team.

5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, save that this clause does not in any way whatsoever apply to the Mango Mussolini or his spawn, an all-embracing God from whom I learn daily, visiting upon his children unto many generations the art of the grift, the con, the snake-oil selling and the crypto steal;
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments, save all the many feared and loathed and despised by the Cantaloupe Caligula, for whom no mercy must be shown, and no commandment kept, and off to a gulag with them.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain, and verily anyone mocking the Mango Mussolini must be in the fake news game and off to the gulag with them.
8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy, unless you happen to be turning Gaza into a new Riviera, but still make no payments for overtime, because if you can't stiff contractors and rely on bankruptcy, why are you in the development/hotel/casino/golf game?
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work, and on the seventh you shall cheat at golf.
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, but you may keep your hotels and golf courses busy and run around demanding to know who the fuck let a stranger within thy gates, and upon discovering them, send them to a gulag.
11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it, and so it may be fruitfully spent preaching climate science denialism and young earth theology.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and if you make up stories about your dad coming from Bavaria and if your mum is Scottish, console yourself at least that she's a white stranger, and so might be spared the gulag and treated as kin of South African farmers.
13. Thou shalt not kill, that's work best assigned to others, though you can consort with and celebrate killers, and issue the odd order to kill or bomb the shit out of things.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery, but if you do make sure you pay off the porn star and try to do it only every so often in every marriage, remembering to marry often shows you honour the institution -how you like to keep trying it - and besides it's better to marry many times than burn.
15. Thou shalt not steal, for going bankrupt and refusing to pay creditors is simply being an entrepreneur.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, because why settle for small porkies (served with wine and bread) when you can lie your golf socks off, and bear false witness against everything and everybody?
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's, unless you can steal it and get away with the stealing, especially if it's golden, or at least a model worthy of being a trophy wife, and then everything's fine, feel free to fuck anything and everything that moves, for thine is the power and the narcissistic glory.
18. And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off, because they were in awe, and perhaps the volcano contained long lost Thetans or King Donald himself.

And after that shamefully long distraction - why must correspondents have all the fun? - back to the bromancer for some final bomb, bomb, bomb Iran thoughts ...

The reason the Iranians are willing even to talk about a strong deal with Trump, when they wouldn’t with Biden, is that they fear Trump could hit them militarily. They didn’t have this fear of Biden. My best guess is Trump won’t strike the Iranians militarily under almost any circumstances. Whatever you might say about Trump, you cannot accuse him of recklessly engaging in military conflict. He is not exactly an isolationist. But a central part of his ideological approach is to denigrate, if not altogether repudiate, the element of US international leadership which has involved military action far from home. He did conduct a bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels, against the wishes of his Vice-President. This was ostensibly to stop the Houthis from attacking international shipping, especially US shipping, in the Red Sea. Even this seems to have been partly show: the Houthis had already stopped attacking US and most international shipping. But it allowed Trump to make a triumphal announcement. Notably, Trump didn’t insist the Houthis stop attacking Israel. Nonetheless, he will be far more permissive of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities than Biden or Obama. The Trump administration has already transferred much of the necessary ordnance to the Israelis to do the job. But even with Iran’s air defences degraded, it would be a dangerous and costly job for Israel to do alone. It would be far more effective if the US and Israelis acted together.
Both Israel and the US devote intense intelligence resources to Iran and believe they would know when and if the Iranians move decisively towards a nuclear weapon. The greatest danger from Israel’s point of view is that some of Trump’s advisers sell him on a deal that allows Iran to keep enriching uranium. The Israelis would certainly feel constrained about bombing Iran if Trump himself has just declared victory. But if they felt it necessary, the Israelis would still strike, perhaps after an interval. It’s unlikely the Iranians will accept ending uranium enrichment. A whole new Middle East conflict may be just around the corner.

How else might Benji stay in power, and thereby develop Gaza into the new Riviera?

And so to another short treat, which the reptiles assured the pond was only a three minute read ...

The pond confesses that it watched Four Corners, just for the sheer fun of the Schadenfreude of whether to keep nuking, with Little to be Proud of firm, and even Ted wavering (YouTube link so the ABC can make some money from ads).

The grey man was in the same LP mindset: Defeat is no reason for Coalition to back down on nuclear, If popular support for nuclear began to wobble during the campaign, its cause likely lies in voter reaction to one of the worst political campaigns the Coalition has fought.

A handy target: Former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton... a “timid defence”. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

A wish never granted: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Why did the pond make room? 

Well the pond can never get enough of reptiles saying 'tis but a scratch ...

'Tis but a flesh wound, so scratch away ...

Some sage advice to the Liberal Party: don’t wimp out over nuclear power. The heavy election defeat should not be seen as voter rejection of all policies, certainly not nuclear. Several months before the campaign, opinion polls showed more than 50 per cent of Australians were in favour of nuclear and two-thirds said the ban on nuclear should be lifted.
If popular support for nuclear began to wobble during the campaign, its cause likely lies in voter reaction to one of the worst political campaigns the Coalition has fought. To that was added, with regard to nuclear specifically, the timid defence by Peter Dutton of his nuclear plans and his flaccid response to Labor’s blatantly false claim the planned reactors would cost a startling $600bn.
Constant repetition of that figure by Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese crosses the line between legitimate policy promotion and propaganda more suitable to authoritarian regimes. Nuclear experts are scathing in their contempt of the exaggeration.
So, what would be the real capital cost of the nuclear plan? The Coalition’s proposed project consists of seven reactors, five with a capacity of 1000 megawatts each and two small modular reactors of 300MW, for a total of 5600MW. The rogue $600bn is made especially ridiculous when compared with the figure in the 2024 GenCost report contracted by the CSIRO. Commissioned through the government, the GenCost exercise came up with $95bn, or one-sixth of Labor’s wild assertion, but a number Labor presumably accepted initially. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s position, the expected blowout in future energy costs would be considerably ameliorated if nuclear power were adopted. And its emissions-free electricity would assist in achieving Australia’s aim to reduce carbon dioxide.

The point about being in the hive mind and talking only to reptile navels was helped along by unlovely Rita, meter maid ... Sky News host Rita Panahi claims Australia is still “clinging on” to the “fantasy” idea that renewables are the cheapest form of energy. “It’s laughable,” she said. “Have a look at your bill if you think that’s true.” This comes amid the debate over renewables and nuclear energy as Australia attempts to reach its net zero target.

An impeccable, deeply researched, incredibly scientific source, and inspired, the grey man proceeded apace ...

The Australian Energy Market Operator has estimated costs for the planned transition to wind, solar and energy storage in two scenarios: step change, costing $594bn; and progressive, costing $437bn. Frontier Economics, widely respected for its independence, estimates the inclusion of nuclear would cut $150bn from the first scenario and $106bn from the second, with nuclear providing between 10 per cent and 29 per cent of Australia’s electricity.
Not only would nuclear reduce costs of the renewables rollout, it also would greatly reduce the amount of land tied up by renewable energy projects, particularly wind farms. Huge areas of fertile agricultural land, forests and wild animal habitats are under threat.

Would you like some IPA chocolate syrup to drape over Rita, meter maid? Sure thing ...

The Institute of Public Affairs has estimated the area needed for wind and solar farms (assuming they take up roughly the same area) if the Albanese government were to meet its 2030 and 2050 net-zero commitments using renewables alone would be greater than the area of South Australia.
The rising concern is uniting farmers and environmentalists. The wind projects proposed for Queensland, for instance, require 600sq km of remnant forest to be cleared, with 4600km of new haulage roads pushed into the wild. By contrast, a 1000MW nuclear reactor that would power one million homes requires only 0.1sq km. All seven reactors proposed by Dutton’s nuclear policy would need 0.56sq km.
Another false claim Albanese and Bowen made was that nuclear plants would take at least 20 years to bring into operation.
Tony Irwin, a nuclear engineer who built and operated eight nuclear plants in Britain, estimates a 1000MW reactor could be constructed in Australia within four to five years and an SMR in three to four. 

Wait, say what, the pond might yet get a SMR for the back yard? And possibly just a few Xmas's away?

To that needs to be added preparation time. The total exercise would take no more than 10 years, he says. Australia would be able to draw on international expertise such as the World Nuclear Association, which has a program providing support to countries developing plans for nuclear energy, the latest being Kazakhstan.
Nuclear power is enjoying an upsurge around the world. There are 440 reactors in 31 countries, with about 65 under construction and more than 100 planned. Germany and Italy have dropped opposition to nuclear. Australia is the only country in the top 20 economies that neither has nuclear power nor is considering it. Are all the other 19 unaware of the costs and time to build?
In the face of the ALP’s misguided ideology and false claims, the Coalition parties should play a supporting role in educating Australians. But first the Coalition parties need to revisit and strengthen their nuclear policy.
Tony Grey is a former chairman of the Uranium Institute, now the World Nuclear Association.

Oh brave Sir Knight, well played ...

And so to the final treat of the day ...

The reptiles clocked it as a five minute read, and for a nanosecond the pond thought of hiving it off to a late arvo slot, but if you've made it this far, you're clearly a cultist and will down the whole thing in a trice ...

The header:Why Jim Chalmers is facing a Waterloo moment over super, As the mining tax was to Wayne Swan, the 30 per cent tax on superannuation balances of more than $3m is to Jim Chalmers.

The caption: Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers during the first cabinet meeting of the new government at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

The plaintive plea to click heels and head to Kansas: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

Some might accuse the pond of hypocrisy, what with the pond having pretended to be jaded at the super debate and using it as an excuse to skip hive mind classes on the topic.

But this is Dame Groan. Repeat three times.

There are Dame Groan devotees standing by, counting themselves blessed to be in the lock up with her ...

As the mining tax was to Wayne Swan, the 30 per cent tax on superannuation balances of more than $3m is to Jim Chalmers. In both cases, they thought the new tax imposts were acts of genius designed to produce gushing torrents of new government revenue.
In fact, these taxes are akin to their Waterloo, ending promising careers based on a stubborn refusal to listen to the people who really understand complex tax matters. Preferring to take advice from commercially naive boffins in Treasury, these men pushed on while being egged on by parts of the equally gullible media.

There came a snap to remind hive mind punters of an old favourite reptile punching bag, Wayne Swan. Picture: Jason Edwards/NewsWire

The pond supposes that for the moment all Dame Groan can do is petulantly stomp her foot, and summon the apocalypse, a variation on the Black Knight routine ...

It’s worth briefly recounting the fate of the mining tax. The basic idea was the government could identify “above-normal” profits being made by resources companies and impose a high rate of tax on these super-profits without there being any adverse consequences for production or investment. Billions of dollars would be raised without imposing any real costs on the economy.
That was the theory, at least. But in practice, there is no accurate way of identifying “above-normal” profits. And because resource projects stretch over many years, covering the cost of past investments is a central issue.
The short of it was that Swan’s mining tax generated no revenue – in fact, it cost the government money in the first year – and caused extreme controversy and turmoil in the investment community. By the time it was scrapped by the Abbott Coalition government, Swan’s reputation as a money man was effectively shot.
Given Chalmers had a front-row seat to the development and fate of the tax, it’s surprising that he would embark on his own divisive tax adventure in the form of Division 296. To be sure, the idea of imposing a surcharge on large superannuation accounts is not quite as radical as a mining super-profits tax. But we should not forget the affected superannuants have amassed their large accounts using perfectly legitimate means.

Indeed, indeed, cry a river for the 85,000 or so affected, and for Dame Groan and all the AFR types sobbing into their porridge ...

At this point the reptiles interrupted with an AV distraction, featuring another cry baby, Investors Mutual co-founder Anton Tagliaferro says the Labor government’s tax on unrealised capital gains is “overly complex” and “not very fair”. The proposed changes would see individuals with super balances over $3 million pay an extra 15 per cent tax on earnings, affecting about 80,000 people or the wealthiest 0.5 per cent of Australians. “It’s obviously going to cause people to have to sell assets if they don’t have the cash because they are paying tax on an unrealised gain,” Mr Tagliaferro told Sky News Business Editor Ross Greenwood. “It’s going to cause quite a bit of turmoil and confusion.”

On with Dame Groan's patented brand of balm for the turmoiled, confused and suffering rich ...

Where Chalmers has floundered is his choice not to index the cut-off ($3m) as well as the highly contentious and unworkable decision to tax unrealised capital gains. Only allowing for unadjusted losses to be carried forward is also an issue: gosh, even under Swan’s mining tax, losses were adjusted by the long-term government bond rate.
Let’s take the first issue. The failure to index will mean more and more superannuation members will be dragged into paying higher tax, with potentially 10 per cent of all members affected into the future. In the meantime, the strong message will be conveyed to those in the accumulation phase to walk away from further investing in superannuation as far as possible.
It’s hard to see how this outcome would be welcomed by Chalmers, or the industry funds, for that matter. The “soak the rich” rationale, which is the current favoured justification of Chalmers for the new impost, will start to wear thin. The most contentious aspect of the proposal is the taxing of unrealised capital gains, meaning superannuation members will be taxed on paper profits, not actual earnings, that may never materialise. It is in fact even worse because tax may be levied on an asset that is under water. This is because the starting point is July 1, 2025, and the new tax impost ignores the purchase price of the asset.
Let’s be clear where this is really coming from. The aim is to damage the self-managed superannuation sector and to accommodate the industry funds whose IT systems have simply not been up to the task of calculating the individual tax imposts on their few members with large accounts.
The trustees of industry super funds, with their close connections to unions and hence to Labor governments, regard SMSFs as the enemy. These same trustees were able to wage an effective campaign against the retail funds, but the SMSFs have held their ground.
It is currently estimated that of the $4.2 trillion of funds in superannuation, $1.1 trillion is held in SMSFs. The handful of very large funds of more than $100m are all SMSFs and exist for historical reasons that no longer apply. Industry funds pay tax at the fund level. When asked by the naive Treasury officials undertaking the superficial consultation about implementing the tax, the simplistic response was to take the difference between the superannuation balances in two years, adjust for contributions and withdrawals, and to impose the additional 15 per cent tax on the difference in the balances above $3m.
While this might work at the level of a large industry super fund, this is simply impractical for SMSFs. Many of these funds contain lumpy, unlisted assets – farms, buildings, businesses – and there is no requirement that these assets be valued every year. At the very least, a shortage of registered valuers will make this approach unworkable.
Very strong disincentives will also be created for any further investment in unlisted assets. The requirement for liquidity to pay the additional tax will have this effect. As various industry leaders have pointed out, there will be broader damaging economic consequences, including in the green energy space. The fear that taxing unrealised gains will be extended to other areas will have a similar impact.

Speaking of fear, it's always good to remember the smirking, shameless ogre who lurks beneath the super bridge, and sends a shudder through the hive mind,  Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

Look at him shamelessly gesturing with a cheesy grin designed to send the reptiles into a frenzy:

Dame Groan was so concerned, she even set about devising alternative ways of slugging the rich. She wanted to save Jimbo, lest he suffer from his Napoleon complex (and never mind the Mr Dick cliché, because at least he got agitated about the beheaded King Charles) ...

One further flank where Chalmers is weak relates to the tax treatment of those on defined benefits as opposed to those on defined contributions. Long-serving politicians, past and some current public servants, military personnel and some others fit into this former category.
There are also some constitutionally protected persons – judges, some state public servants and assorted others – who will never have to pay the new tax. Chalmers has meekly accepted this latter limitation. The challenge is to ensure the tax burdens between the two categories of superannuants is equivalent. While it is true that those on defined benefit pensions pay normal income tax rates with a rebate, there is no equivalent impost to the contributions and earnings taxes that most superannuants face.
For all the bluster about the Prime Minister being equally affected, this is simply not the case. The decision to use the Family Court method of calculating the implied capital base is very generous to those on defined benefits. And over time, the tax impost on those on defined benefits will fall, which contrasts with other affected superannuants. The fact is those on defined benefits stand to do very well out of the deal, which could be politically difficult.
The real tragedy is that there are alternatives to Chalmers’s new tax. For instance, he could have opted for a series of deeming rates for different classes of assets to operationalise the higher tax. He could have stuck with the current system. Chalmers can already kiss goodbye to the expected revenue as people withdraw from superannuation and seek out other tax-effective vehicles, including an upgraded family home. Virtually all those with large super accounts have passed the preservation age and can immediately withdraw funds without penalty.
My advice to Chalmers is to avoid his Waterloo. He can achieve almost everything he is aiming for without attempting to tax unrealised gains.
He should simply index the $3m figure: he might even do this in the context of initiating a broad inquiry into the taxing of savings with a view to bringing a greater degree of uniformity and rationality to the system.

Was that a sign that Dame Groan was slipping? Weakening just a little? Offering up tribute and alms? Not fancying her skills as a Duke of Wellington or a Marshal Blücher? (And never mind the cliché).

Not to worry, the pond has done its duty, has groaned along with super one more time, though it will take a major reptile star to persuade the pond to stray back on to that particular battlefield.

And so, feeling replete after this rich reptile day, the pond ends with a celebratory David Rowe, featuring a fuss which didn't make it to the top of the reptile digital edition early this day, wherein one crazy calls another crazy ...