In which the venerable Meade returns to the reptile grind, and the dog botherer and the Bjorn-again one ensure it is a grind ..

 

It's about bloody time, what with the venerable Meade  having cardigan-wearer hours over the holyday summer, but at last she's back to take up duties in The Graudian with New boss Luke McIlveen’s reverence for Ray Hadley unnerves SMH and Age staff.

The pond has to note that there's way more than a reverence for dickhead Hadders that unnerves the pond about McIlveen, but with the venerable Meade on the case (with the ABC also high on the list), the pond can simply provide the already correspondent-provided link and move on to other duties. (On the upside, the pond long ago abandoned the Nine rags, so whatever he does to trash the brand, in a bonus way, is a never no mind to the pond).

Before proceeding, the pond should note that Cam Wilson headline over at Crikey, ‘No evidence’ pro-Palestine Sydney Opera House protesters chanted ‘Gas the Jews’, say police, (paywall), while at the same place, Charlie Lewis asked a truly ridiculous and risible question ... Was Peta Credlin correct in defending the Abbott government’s election promises?

What's the point of a question with only one answer?

There was also another grundling ICJ ruling shows the limits of our notions of genocide, rendering the mass killing in Gaza unnameable, The ICJ ruling proves the Eurocentric notion of genocide cannot adequately frame the colonialist form of mass killing occuring (sic) in Gaza now. 

Genocide still seems a perfectly serviceable word to the pond, but does note that back in October 2022 the UNHR noted "Domicide" must be recognised as an international crime: UN expert. 

Genocide, domicide, whatever, collective punishment is already a war crime, so a lot of this talk is just idle, helpless posturing as war crimes continue to be committed ...

The reptiles seem to think this has all gone away, judging by this Saturday's digital edition ...

The pond noted that the reptiles had caught up with Crikey, but kept their own skew going in the matter of the chanting, and then flinched, as you do when touching a burning stove ... not nattering "Ned" still blathering on about tax. 

Then there was Col, doing his best to talk up renewable cowboys, apparently unaware of what coal mining did to the fertile soil of the Hunter valley.

The pond decided that "Ned" was best left to ruin Sunday, and so the pond turned to Dame Slap, perched at the top far right in plum position ...

The pond is aware of Swifty agitation about porn photos (and never mind that PhotoShop has enabled this form of peculiar activity for years), but Dame Slap was sounding right on ...

I have a long pedigree as a free market lover on the grounds that governments are proven boofheads when it comes to getting the balance right between protecting people and allowing people to flourish. If a politician or a bureaucrat can, they will choose a sledgehammer over a scalpel. Even so, if there aren’t already laws that exist to stop our images being doctored without our consent, and then being published, then we may need to start working on that. It’s one thing to add a shadow or a filter. But once you start playing around with someone’s breasts, then all bets are off.

She even provided a description and sounded very knowing about Adelaide and could spot a cracker shot of a cracker sort she possibly wouldn't mind cracking on to ...

I am not one to rush to judgment, so I will say this slowly. I reckon a bloke did this. The original photo of Purcell was already a cracker. The Animal Justice MP is an attractive woman. She may have a few more tattoos than I’ve seen outside of certain parts of Adelaide, but still, by Australian political standards, she’s hot. Is that why some complete nob behind the scenes at the Nine News Melbourne bulletin thought they should use technology to increase the size of her breasts and slice up a perfectly respectable white dress to reveal a fake bare midriff? Seriously. It’s 2024. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This kind of weird stuff is usually reserved for socially defective drongos on social media. Would Channel Nine’s photo artist be fine with some backroom creep doing this to his girlfriend, sister, mother, wife, daughter?

There was just one problem with all this cracking on about being hot and why it was terrible to fiddle with the cracker snap of the cracker sort (sorry, with all the cracker salivating, you might need to wipe down your screen).

Yep, the reptiles had featured, in very large snap form ...

The doctored image of Victorian MP Georgie Purcell.

Just so you could crack on to the enhanced snap of the hot cracker sort.

The pond could have played the same trick. Cluck clucked in Dame Slap form, full of righteous, foam-frothing indignation, featured Dame Slap's piece, and of course, in the process, just to prove her point featured the very same, The doctored image of Victorian MP Georgie Purcell.

The stench of nauseating hypocrisy was too much for this koala to bear - not to mention all the public bar faux carry on about hot cracker sorts - and never mind how many times the reptiles have run doctored images of politicians, especially when they had an actual graphics department - so the pond looked below the fold ...

Oh dear, it was going to be a dismal weekend ...

Astute readers will have already noted prattling Polonius's standard ploy of shifting attention from the Catholic church and touchy-feely priests to state schools, but it made the dog botherer's opening ploy a tad comical ...

What's astonishing is that they allow the dog botherer near children, but the pond supposes he did produce one sane member in the family, perhaps by accident ...

Whenever the dog botherer starts rabbiting on about family, the pond can't resist returning to son Liam's piece for Junkee, no matter that it's now very long in the tooth ... it's the only way that the pond can remember that Tim Bleagh was once a thing and the aged Bolter was in his glory days ...

Now on with the rest of the dog botherer, which in the usual way turns to a whining and a ranting about pretty much everything, as snowflake weirdos are wont to do ...

At that point, the pond began to wonder if the dog botherer had declined all government assistance for his son's cricket team and had decided to do all the funding himself ... god forbid that his son's cricket team should pay its own way ... but the point of course, in the angertainment way, was to whip up hostility to all forms of government, very much part of the Faux Noise and GOP playbook ... and sure enough climate change and migration became part of the shouting at clouds ...

The pond's only relief was to imagine the dog botherer as a Toorak matron shopping in Coles while getting agitated about the tennis club...

It was a relief to see that the next gobbet was short, while the snivelling and whining got even louder...

Rex Connor? Really? It says a lot about the reptile demographics that the readership is expected to be able to take that reference in its stride. 

Anybody else, wanting to talk about deep conspiracies involving ideological considerations would have tailored their piece to drag in talk of the fixing of the Superbowl or perhaps done a habba habba do...

Never mind, the reptiles dragged up another snap of an old timer to hiss and boo ...

... and then there was just a last short gobbet to go ...

Yes, and the first step should be the slashing of funding to the dog botherer's son's cricket team or to his school, or to any of the perks enjoyed by the dog botherer himself, not to mention the News Corp empire's assorted government grifts ...

Luckily Wilcox was on hand to celebrate the best of bigger government ...

Then came an onerous task, peculiar to readers of the lizard Oz ... a serve of the Bjorn-again one ...

The pond is continually amazed that the Bjorn-again one still finds a home in the lizard Oz. 

The pond did a search of the opening lines and came away with just two references ...

So this was week-old stale goods ...and it was "Opinion by Special to Financial Post" ...

It was of course just the standard Bjorn-again rant, though this time he strayed into his climate science denialist past, something he's been avoiding of late ...

The pond had originally baulked at doing it all over again, until a correspondent kindly provided a link to a Mother Jones story ...

Meanwhile the reptiles had slipped in another still ...

...before getting to the nub of the climate science denialism ...

The pond realises that line about investing in R&D - by the pond's reckoning the quadrillion time that the Bjorn-again one has delivered it - will be way past the valley of tedium for those still up to wasting their time reading the Bjoron-again one (it does rhyme with moron) - but it did allow another excerpt from that story referenced by the pond's correspondent ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles slipped in a snap of their true pride and joy, dinkum, clean, virginal Oz coal ...

Yes, it's dinkum clean virginal Oz coal, coal, coal, as the only way forward for the world ...

Oh there were a few more pars by the Bjorn-again one ...

 

... but the chance for the reptiles to celebrate for the umpteenth time clean, dinkum, virginal coal was a reptile mission accomplished ... and with much work for the venerable Meade left to do in the year ahead.

And now, as the pond started with genocide, why not end with an immortal Rowe celebrating jolly Joe's feeble attempt to prove he was a road warrior by tackling four - count 'em Sesame street style - four settlers ...

In which the pond leaves aside a classic case of projection for the usual serve of angertainment, alarmism and genocide ...

 

The pond can't begin to count the number of times it reads a reptile headline and thinks "projection", in the psychological sense. 

Projection is a psychological phenomenon where feelings directed towards the self are displaced towards other people. Psychoanalysts regard projection as a defence mechanism of alterity concerning "inside" content mistaken to be coming from the "outside" Other

There was the Price is Wrong perched in the preferred top far right position of the lizard Oz's digital edition with the headline "Activists exploit Indigenous Australians for their  own ends"...

All the pond could think was "projection" - has there ever been an activist better at exploiting Indigenous Australians for her own ends? - before moving down to the comments section and confirming this was going to be a grum Friday ...

Sheesh, in a sane world, the pond would pack its tents, and if not steal into the night, then at least sneak off to muesli and OJ ...

The pond decided it could only come at our Henry after being thoroughly alarmed and disturbed by the doings of vulgar youff, and luckily cackling Claire delivered the angertainment goods ... because "alarming" and "radical" and "activism" and "fear" make up all that's best in the reptile stew, especially if it's that bloody Gen Z, even if the pond had recently been told that such terms were meaningless blather... per Joe Pinsker in The Atlantic...

‘Gen Z’ Only Exists in Your Head, The dividing lines between generations are a figment of our collective imagination.

You know there’s drama in research circles—or at least what qualifies as drama in research circles—when someone writes an open letter.
Earlier this year, that someone was Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland at College Park. His request: that Pew Research Center, the nonpartisan “fact tank,” “do the right thing” and stop using generational labels such as Gen Z and Baby Boomers in its reports. Some 170 social-science researchers signed on to Cohen’s letter, which argued that these labels were arbitrary and counterproductive.
After Cohen laid out his arguments in a Washington Post opinion piece, Kim Parker, Pew’s director of social-trends research, issued a response that both acknowledged the “limitations to generational analysis” and noted that “it can be a useful tool for understanding demographic trends and shifting public attitudes.” She told me recently that Pew is now in a “period of reflection” on the merits of using generational labels, during which it is having internal discussions and inviting outside researchers, Cohen among them, to share their perspectives.
Cohen is not arguing that when you’re born doesn’t matter for your life trajectory. Being an 18-year-old in today’s economic and cultural climate is a very different experience than being the same age in 1990 or in 1960. The period someone grows up in can shape how, when, and whether they form a family, own a home, pursue higher education, and attain financial stability. Cohen and Parker agree on all that.
Generational labels capture some of the basic fact that people who are born in different eras lead meaningfully different lives. But these labels are clumsy and imprecise—and getting more so all the time. They flatten out the experiences of tens of millions of very different people, remove nuance from conversations, and imply commonality where there may be none. The social scientists are right: Generational labels are stupid.

Sorry Joe, that's the entire point, cackling Claire is a stupid ning nong, so can the pond just get on with the dire warnings about Gen ...

Meanwhile, the pond couldn't help seizing the moment to stick in that recent Crikey story ... New Nine boss once defended a man’s sexual relationship with a minor (paywall)

Meanwhile, cackling Claire was still alarmed by vulgar youff, in particular vulgar young womyn ...

Ah, the Lattouf affair, apparently the one matter where the reptiles are at one with the cardigan wearers ... meanwhile, that Crikey story continued ...

Also in the car was the 33-year-old man and his 15-year-old girlfriend. All three people died when the car hit a bump at around 180km/h and flew over 40 metres into a power pole on Chamberlain Road, Wyoming. The highly publicised crash would be followed eventually by the establishment of vehicle power restrictions for provisional licence holders around the country. 

On November 26, 2004, The Daily Telegraph published a piece by McIlveen titled “Too quick to judge loss and young love”. McIlveen, a Wyoming native who described himself as familiar with the scene of the crash, wrote:

"Ray Hadley cautiously but firmly raised the issue yesterday in his morning segment on Radio 2GB, tapping the mood of consternation surrounding the background to this terrible accident. The tone of the program, as with other talkback calls and water-cooler comment at work, was this: so he was 33 and she was 15? That means the girl must have been having sex at, what, 14? 13?"

McIlveen continued: “One fact is irrefutable — under the law governing the age of consent, and under different circumstances, the story of the relationship between [the couple] could have played out very differently. But those who would rush to condemn this dead couple should appraise themselves of a few facts.”

McIlveen went on to note how “the idea of a teenage girl falling pregnant to a man more than twice her age is deeply shocking to some people”, but said “[the girl’s father] was comfortable with the man his daughter had chosen and that should be more than enough”, going on to describe the “real advantages” of children born to young parents. 

“Surely the real issue to emerge from this catastrophe is the access of testosterone-charged, inexperienced drivers to powerful cars. It’s not about young couples in love,” he wrote.

“We should be praising [the girl] for committing to one of life’s biggest challenges at such a young age. While her friends were working out how to talk their way into local nightclubs, [she] was preparing to raise a child.” 

McIlveen then cited a 2004 Productivity Commission report that presented a declining fertility rate as a challenge for Australia into the future: “For all the controversy surrounding their relationship, [the man and teenager] were doing their bit to address this problem … The last thing [the community needs] is moralisers lecturing on the rights and wrongs of teenage pregnancy.” 

At the time of publication of McIlveen’s article, section 66C of the NSW Crimes Act outlined sexual intercourse with a child between the ages of 14 and 16 as an offence that carried the penalty of imprisonment for up to 10 years. This remains the case today.

The print version of the article shows it was accompanied by a cartoon depicting a heavily pregnant schoolgirl.

Crikey put a series of questions to Nine, including whether it was aware of the article before hiring McIlveen and whether it believes the views presented were appropriate for editorial leadership in its newsrooms. Nine declined to comment for this article. 

Crikey also put questions to McIlveen, including whether editorial leaders should be judged on their past work. McIlveen did not respond in time for publication. 

Crikey also put similar questions to Campbell Reid, editor of The Daily Telegraph when McIlveen’s article was published, but did not receive a response in time for publication. 

McIlveen’s tweets, which Crikey understands have been circulating around newsrooms, include a 2013 tweet during that year’s federal election, and a 2014 tweet while editor of the Daily Mail. At the time of writing, both tweets remain live. 

In 2014, McIlveen reposted a story on Twitter about model and 2012 Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris working out in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay, describing it as “some photos of former Miss World Australia training in a Sydney park yesterday. With some words.”

Another tweet from 2013 refers to Nine’s federal election coverage, which featured Howard-era treasurer Peter Costello.

“Tell you what, Costello could do with a run round the block,” McIlveen wrote on Twitter. Costello has served as the chair of Nine Entertainment Co since 2016, the company that now employs McIlveen. 

Speaking to McIlveen’s former associates at previous mastheads paints an equally colourful picture. On learning of his appointment at Nine, one former colleague reacted to this correspondent: “No fucking way. Jesus ever-loving Christ.”

Asked to describe working under McIlveen, they said, “He’s a boy’s boy sort of a fella … was decent at his job, but not a great leader.

“In fact, was a shit leader. Didn’t mind protecting the mates. He’s probably a very good friend of the people he’s close to.

“He’s a good journo and he’s got a good eye for a story … but are there no women in Australia we could hire?”

Meanwhile, - talk about a heck of a lot of Colbert meanwhiles - cackling Claire wanted to reassure readers that she had her own flock of sheep, who would do what they were told, because that's what was needed ...

Yes, no difficulties or disruption, just sheeple doing their duty and given a daily shearing, while this time the cardigan wearers were sadly in the wrong camp.

Then the reptiles provided a snap of another vulgar youff, designed to terrify the readership ...

The pond's mother would have had a fainting fit at the sight of all those tatts, and the pond is also inclined to roll eyes, but whatever ... the pond realises that young 'uns are different and are wont to do things differently.

The real problem is a familiar complaint for those of an age and an inclination: whatever happened to the crispy bacon we had before the war and why don't the reptiles run the sort of snaps that you'd associate with that Crikey story ...

That's more like it, whatever happened to the good old leer? 

Or perhaps an up the duff joke for underaged school girls...

Meanwhile, back with Colbert, and cackling Claire was giving uppity Clementine the good old reptile what-for ... though the pond did begin to worry. A quick check suggested that Ford was 43 years old. How had she been shoehorned into Gen Z, which - sorry Joe - the wiki suggested applied to people born between 1997 and 2013?

If you're going to apply a meaningless and stupid label, shouldn't you apply it to someone the right age, which by the pond's calculation - admittedly the pond is hopeless at maths - would mean someone under the age of 30 ... oh wait, "projection".

Hey Joe, apparently "Gen Z" really means "people I don't like and disagree with, because I'm extremely disagreeable ..."

Mystery upon cackling Claire mystery ...

Emotional distress for girls who break ranks and voice opinions that go against the grain? 

But wasn't the entire point of cackling Claire's piece to celebrate the sheeple in her employ and demonise those girls who break ranks and voice opinions that go against the grain?

As usual, the pond was left in a state of confusion, though apparently sex with a minor can be quite a good thing for men ...

And so to Henry and alas no Thucydides this day, because genocide of the Carthage kind is the topic ...

As with cackling Claire, the pond feels the need to rudely interrupt (and to split the infinitive) and ask if anyone saw that Graudian visual display a couple of days ago, How war destroyed Gaza’s neighbourhoods – visual investigation.

A Guardian investigation has detailed the mass destruction of buildings and land in three neighbourhoods in Gaza.
Using satellite imagery and open-source evidence, the investigation found damage to more than 250 residential buildings, 17 schools and universities, 16 mosques, three hospitals, three cemeteries and 150 agricultural greenhouses.
Entire buildings have been levelled, fields flattened and places of worship wiped off the map in the course of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, launched after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.
The destruction has not only forced 1.9 million people to leave their homes but also made it impossible for many to return. This has led some experts to describe what is happening in Gaza as “domicide”, defined as the widespread, deliberate destruction of the home to make it uninhabitable, preventing the return of displaced people. The concept is not recognised in law.

You won't find our Henry recognising domicide or genocide ...

Indeed,  indeed, meanwhile Meanwhile operation "from the river to the sea" continues unabated ...

Israeli defence minister says forces will push on to Rafah

Yoav Gallant has said that Israeli forces in Gaza will “continue to Rafah” near the border with Egypt, where throngs of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge and Egyptian authorities have warned against an Israeli incursion.
“The Khan Yunis Brigade of the Hamas organization is disbanded, we will complete the mission there and continue to Rafah,” Gallant said in a social media post on Thursday.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians, who have been fleeing south since the start of the war, have ended up in or near Rafah. They have long feared an Israeli assault on the area, as there is no farther south they can move.
Israel’s military operations in Khan Younis have been devastating to the civilian population there, and have included attacks on the city’s two largest hospitals, Nasser and al-Amal.

Gallant is a familiar name with a familiar strategy ...

Israel plans to directly occupy the Gaza Strip after the war is over, giving its forces freedom to carry out military operations and assassinations as they do now in the West Bank, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 30 January.

"After the war, when it's over, I think it's completely clear that Hamas won't control Gaza. Israel will control [it] militarily but won't control it in a civilian sense," Gallant said at a briefing at his office in Tel Aviv.

"When we're talking about military freedom of operation, look what happened tonight in Jenin," Gallant added, referring to the assassination of three Palestinians in the West Bank city early on Tuesday.

Israeli special forces dressed as civilians raided the hospital and killed three Palestinian resistance fighters. According to Palestinian media, one had been injured in a raid in October and was receiving treatment while the others were visiting him at the hospital.

"This is military freedom of operation at the highest level, and yet we don't control the area in a civilian sense," Gallant says. "This is achievable [in Gaza as well], and it will take time."

Gallant's comments suggest he wants Israel to occupy Gaza while shunning the responsibilities of an occupying power toward the Palestinian civilian population as required under international humanitarian law (IHL) 

IHL includes ensuring sufficient hygiene and public health standards and providing food and medical care to the population under occupation. Israel has been destroying Gaza's hospitals and health system, while imposing a blockade to limit the entry of food and water.

IHL prohibits collective or individual forcible transfers of the population from and within the occupied territory as well as transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory.

Commenting on this issue, Defense Minister Gallant told US officials last week that he and the Israeli military will not allow the rebuilding of illegal outposts or settlements by Israeli settlers inside the Gaza Strip, four US and Israeli officials told Axios.

But on Sunday, 12 ministers and 18 lawmakers in Israel's governing coalition gathered at a conference to promote the forcible expulsion of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians and to build Jewish settlements in enclave. 

Shortly after the start of the war in October, a document was leaked from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence outlining a plan to expel the population of Gaza under the pretext of humanitarian concern. 

Members of Israel's settler movement have for years advocated the reconquest and resettlement of Gaza. In 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the dismantling of the Gush Katif settlement block and the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza. 

At this point the reptiles cynically inserted a snap that had nothing to do with our Henry's story ...

Then it was on with the enthusiastic support of collective punishment, collective displacement and collective ruin ...

Benji's fundamentalist mob needs this sort of useful fool to mount all the usual useless arguments, while the real work can continue apace...

Rajagopal, Azzouz and Coward all said the evidence in the Guardian investigation was in line with their understanding of events in Gaza as a form of domicide.
“The utter annihilation of Beit Hanoun and the destruction of al-Zahra and Khan Younis, are evidence that Israeli use of force has made life impossible by making them uninhabitable,” said Rajagopal, the UN rapporteur. “All that matters to live a dignified and secure life is destroyed and that is not legal or legitimate under any sense of a law-based world.”
Coward, the Queen Mary University professor, said: “The destruction of homes plays a key role in both the displacement – communities cannot return if they have no home to return to – and the destruction of communities, as homes are destroyed and families displaced so all the things that make a community cohesive are destroyed and they are scattered to many different places.”
Azzouz said: “The Guardian investigation shows how Israel weaponises architecture in Gaza, destroying Palestinians’ cultural heritage sites and their everyday urban fabric.”
Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek estimate that between 142,900 and 176,900 buildings had been damaged as of 17 January, which raises questions on how to rehabilitate Gaza when the war ends.
Coward added: “Looking at the images of al-Zahra, Khan Yunis and Beit Hanoun there is widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure such as schools, universities and shops. This destruction not only kills and displaces civilians, it destroys the sense that these places are home to a particular way of life. If you can’t shop or learn, you can’t form a sense of belonging or call a place home.”

And that's the entire point ... there will be no rehabilitation of the old kind, while the useful fools will crow and celebrate the genocide, while arguing the fine niceties of the law ...

Naturally, our Henry took a leaf out of the mango Mussolini's playbook. If you don't like a court's decision, mock the court, the jury, the judge and the entire system ...

Yeah, tell that one to Gaza ... but the pond will concede that this day the reptiles hit on an effective strategy. 

After this day's reading, the pond wished the reptiles had carried on with their talk of class warfare and the perils of giving the poor a taxation break ... it would have meant not getting alarmed about Gen Z and genocide, and instead of the two G's, the pond could have ended the day with an immortal Rowe...

.... featuring a man of action ...

In which the pond does all the supplemental reading required, but has readings of its own to study ...

 

The pond did all the supplemental reading required. 

There was Dame Slap, heavily featured in Bruce Lehrmann inquiry head spent 7.5 hours over 55 phone calls to The Australian during probe, court told. Of course you won't read about any of that adverse attitude and reasonable apprehension of bias in the lizard Oz.

There was Tim Dunlop furiously scribbling Politician swallows boofhead, How rejigging the Stage 3 tax package exposed the nothingness of Dutton and News Corp.

The pond took a look at Budget 2014: The front pages, which was a bit like an addiction to torture porn shows, and the pond read Greg Jericho's When it comes to tax, what is bracket creep – and is ‘fixing’ it really that important?  Then the pond moved on to Cost of negative gearing and other rental deductions soaring, Australian treasury data reveals.

By then the pond's burning of the midnight oil had left it exhausted, so it flunked out on the link to Alex Krainer, a bizarre rant involving the satanic Soros that didn't make any sense ...

Besides, the pond had new tasks for a new reptile day ...and look who occupied the centrefold, while valiant Ben did more turf war stuff, droning on about things the bromancer should be droning about...

Now the pond understands that there will be some who will flinch from any reading of petulant Peta but some of it was truly delicious. 

It must be terrible to be reminded that you were the driving force in one of the worst governments in recent memory and having refused to take part, then turned to the lizard Oz to defend yourself ... so the pond broke its usual rule, and sampled just a little of Peta's implausible denials ...

...it didn’t surprise me that Abbott declined to be involved because he never saw himself as the hero in a play that was all about him. Abbott took the view that he’d said all that needed to be said when in office and had adequately reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of his government in speeches he personally wrote, as well as in the three essays he penned for Quadrant, published in 2016. 
Like me, he mistrusted the ABC’s own agenda. As it happened, the file footage that the ABC selected at least did justice to the focus and discipline required to bring the Coalition back to government in record time and didn’t entirely ignore the successes of the first two years, like stopping the boats (that no one thought could be done), finalising the trade deals that had languished for a decade, scrapping the carbon tax and mining tax, and beginning an infrastructure catch-up with new projects (such as WestConnex and the Western Sydney airport) that are even now still being opened.
As for Turnbull’s claim that ­Abbott was a “dangerous” prime minister who ran a “terrible” government, a minister with honour could always have resigned, if that were his view, rather than spend more time machinating against his leader than doing his job. Turnbull several times offered to use his friendship with fellow rich-lister Clive Palmer in support of the 2014 budget (the last attempt at significant economic reform) but like so much, those were empty words. And as he told the world on Monday night, by then he was in discussions with numerous colleagues, including Scott Morrison, he insisted, to remove the PM who’d won a majority akin to that of Fraser in 1975 and Howard in 1996.
Indeed, it was only because of Abbott’s landslide victory that Turnbull narrowly survived his one and only electoral test as leader when he sacrificed 14 of the 25 seats that Abbott had won from Labor over two elections. Turnbull’s claim that the PM was somehow both anti-women and overly dependent on his female CoS was utterly implausible. Claims that Abbott didn’t run a proper cabinet process are also fanciful; after all, Turnbull himself had appointed me secretary to the shadow cabinet when he was leader and Abbott’s problem was less how cabinet operated and more those who leaked from it.
Whatever the claims against me, at least I was working for the government, not against it. 
On national security, far from being dangerous, “shirt-fronting” Putin was the least a self-respecting Australian leader could do after the Russian dictator’s 2014 mini-invasion of Ukraine led to the murder of 38 Australians on MH17. Abbott didn’t sit on his hands or hide behind bureaucrats. Yet all the Abbott government’s military deployments – to Ukraine to bring back our dead, to airdrop supplies to the besieged Yazidis on Mt Sinjar, to advise and assist and train the Iraqi armed forces against ISIS, to run weapons to the Kurds, and to bomb terrorist positions in Syria – were made with official military and intelligence advice and demonstrated that, at least in those days, Australia’s armed forces were more than capable of being deployed around the world in support of freedom.

Of course the truly delicious element was the snaps. One featured petulant Peta glowering behind Malware like an éminence grise ...

The whining and the caterwauling ... the petulance, if you will ... continued on ... and it's hardly surprising she whinges about the ABC, what with refusing to take part ...

It’s hardly surprising, given the nature of the program, that the ABC failed to put the record-straight on a couple of key issues. The 2014 budget did not break election promises. It was only subsequently that Abbott applied a modest efficiency dividend to the ABC that nearly all other agencies had long faced. Abbott had been explicit in the 2013 campaign that the Coalition would not support the Gillard cash splash on schools and hospitals beyond the then forward estimates. And history shows that total spending on health and education continued to increase (yes, increase) under Abbott; only at a slower (and more sustainable) rate than before. Abbott was just following the Hawke government precedent in seeking a modest co-payment on GP visits, and extending an earlier Labor move to raise the pension age, and to reduce the indexation rates for some social ­security benefits. Seeking to have school leavers learn or earn rather than go on the dole was a worthy bid to break the “something for nothing” mindset that’s so contrary to our old “have a go” Australian ethos.
Once same-sex marriage had been rejected by the parliament in the 2010 term (including by then PM Gillard who voted it down), Abbott’s position was that, if it came up again, the Coalition’s position would be decided in the usual way by the joint partyroom. There was nothing tricky or underhand in his handling of this issue. Indeed, he’d specifically discussed putting the issue to a plebiscite with a key frontbencher (who subsequently claimed to have been taken by surprise) at a dinner in Adelaide a few weeks earlier; I know because I was there. As Abbott said at the time, people’s attitude to marriage is so personal that it should be decided directly by them rather than by their MPs (as was Turnbull’s preference); that it would mean, whatever the outcome, that Australians would accept it without rancour. And he was right. Indeed, resolving this issue via the plebiscite that Turnbull had opposed turned out to be one of his government’s few achievements.
With time to reflect, it’s now clear that one of the key differences between our public life in the Hawke-Howard era, when I started in politics in 1998, and more recently has been the decline in personal character. Our best recent PMs were able to succeed because big egos with different policy positions were much readier to buckle down and support the government, and the leader of the day. Most of them saw public life in terms of service to the nation rather than personal advancement and didn’t let resentment get the better of them if they never went into cabinet or even past the backbench. On that score, looking at how Turnbull and others let their personal agendas trump the long-term national interest shows how central Peter Costello’s good character and forbearance were to the ultimate success of the Howard government. Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of Nemesis’ first episode was the credibility it gave to a raft of MPs smarting at Abbott’s move to end family members’ employment at taxpayer expense or first class travel overseas.
After having a ringside seat at the self-destruction of the Rudd-Gillard government, I never thought that the Coalition would indulge in an action replay. I always knew Turnbull would try and come for Abbott one day but I didn’t think MPs would buy the carpetbagger’s spiel in the first term, especially after his patent failures as opposition leader. Such a waste, such a tragedy for our country, and such a blot on the ­record of the Liberal Party to the everlasting shame of those responsible.
Like Abbott, I declined to appear in the program; because I was certain of a selective and distorted version of my response to the usual crap that I was too tough on entitlements (what was the alternative, to lose ministers as in the first term of Howard?), that MPs couldn’t get to Abbott (really; they couldn’t use a mobile phone, walk around to his office, or buttonhole him after question time?), that voters didn’t want to see staffers in bars late at night (recent history? enough said) or that I spoke my mind (isn’t that what a good adviser does, not just meekly agree?) 
    ‘Everything was used against me, even my years on IVF by low-lifes like Clive Palmer.’

Then there was that other snap ...

It almost as if the reptiles, after listening to petulant Peta do her princess and the pea routine, had decided to select snaps that showed her carrying on like a pork chop ...

It was commitment to the Liberal Party’s ideals that motivated me to serve our country as a political staffer for over 16 years; a faith – to be frank – that was severely shaken when Turnbull and Morrison were moving against the PM they were duty-bound to support. And in the process, trashing the reputation for policy and procedural smarts I’d earned in the Howard years and in opposition; the grudging recognition that a woman on my side of aisle could be as good as the blokes when it came to campaigning. Everything was used against me, even my years on IVF by low-lifes like Clive Palmer. Some days, I honestly don’t know how I managed to survive, and I mean literally; a big part of what kept my head together was never wanting the haters to succeed. While we do not agree on so many things, I will never forget the humanity of Bill Shorten and, later, Anthony Albanese, who both quietly reached out to me to express their disgust at my treatment. Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop? Maybe the card is in the mail.
Part of the reason you are reading me in The Australian today is that when the caricature of me was created by the plotters out to get Abbott, as a staffer I had no voice; I could not respond and all I could do was cop it. When that changed, I knew it would be near impossible to counter what had been manufactured and that my best response was to enter the public square and let people who had heard the criticisms take a closer look and make up their own minds. Having the top-rating show on Sky News for the past three years is my answer to “those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat”.
Now that Morrison has joined Turnbull in exiting the parliament, my hope is for an end to the self-serving duplicity of recent years so that the next Coalition government can be far better than the last.

Don't worry, duckie, you'll always have the memories and the devotion to a man who's singular skill was to make wearing budgies, riding bikes in MAMIL gear, donning knighthoods and eating onions all the rage ...

Such love, such devotion, such good times but now the pond must move on to check the other offerings...

There's a surprise ... Jack the insider veers towards myopia, genocide, Benji, collective punishment, collective displacement, and all the rest ...

Then pond noticed the Killer letter from America, and knew what it had to do ...

Ah, the suffering of the mango Mussolini, and once again, there's no need to read between the lines. 

Killer is deeply moved by the suffering of the Donald ...

If only Killer could break out and tell the truth the way they do on Faux Noise ...Pentagon Rejects Fox News Conspiracy About Taylor Swift Being Recruited as an Asset

Good old Jesse Waters, it started at Faux Noise, and Variety could see the entertainment value in Taylor Swift Ignites Right-Wing Media Frenzy: Why Pundits Think the Super Bowl Is Rigged and the Pop Star Is a Psyop.

On the Jan. 9 episode of his show “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the Fox News talking head played a clip from a 2019 conference organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (per Politico). During the presentation, Swift is named as a powerful influencer, and Watters connected several disparate dots from there.

“Around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset,” he said. “It’s real. The Pentagon Psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online.”

Days later, the Pentagon denied the accusation with a Swift-quoting statement, saying “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”

Despite the rebuttal, Watters’ speculation kicked off a flood of posts about Swift potentially being a psyop on platforms like X/Twitter and Reddit.

Conspiracy theorist and one-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sure thinks so. In a now-viral response to a tweet saying that Swift came out as “super liberal in 2020,” Ramaswamy wrote on Monday that, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

The pond isn't a big fan of Sonny Brunch's film reviews, but he too saw the fun ...

And so on, and for once the pond can look forward to the thugby season, but sadly Killer is off the pace ...

Actually she had a friend back up her word, with another word or two, but the pond isn't going to relitigate the case ... because it seems like it's habba habba redo time, what with Trump says he’s interviewing new lawyers for Carroll case appeal, attacks judge.

The reptiles blessed Killer with a couple of large snaps ...

... but the pond had been there before many times, and was more interested in Killer's killer take ...

Ah, of course, it's all an idle conspiracy ...bloody New Yorkers and their bloody fancy pants cocktails ...

And so to the final Killer gobbet, with everything resolved, because Killer knows, Killer was there in the jury room, considering all the evidence ...

Indeed, indeed, and what joy for the United States to have a man at the top of his game in the top job ...

And now to a protest. Why do the reptiles always seek to hide their very best? 

If the pond hadn't broken a lifetime habit, and glanced at the reptiles late in the day - reptiles are best tackled in the morning on an empty stomach - the pond would have missed Mein Gott's latest offering.

The pond can always leave Oliver droning on about the fush and chup fulk, but has developed a taste for Mein Gott offerings, almost up there with Killer himself,  and this was a grand solution to everything ...

Yes, Mein Gott is on the case, and the reptiles backed it up with a snap of a state-run plant ...

The pond was wildly excited, a reptile spruiking the need to nationalise energy production, the energy grid, the entire kit and caboodle. State-run is the way to go ...

How often do you read a reptile spruiking rampant government control? Yet it seems we must follow the Xi ...

Ah, the inscrutable cunning of the fiendish Chinese and Chairman Xi, and only Mein Gott knows the truth of the cunning plan, and to prove it, the reptiles offered up a snap of a government owned and run nuclear power plant ...

We must nationalise the production of energy by, if not the end of the week, then certainly by the end of the month ... we must implement Chairman Xi's solution ... we must nuke the country, nuke the planet, in order to save the country and save the planet...

Indeed, indeed, keep on with coal, because there'll be nuke or thorium or whatever, which is to say whatever major technology might be developed long after it matters, because remember, there'll always be sweet pie in the sky bye and bye ...

...and that reminded the pond of another bit of required reading ...a reminder of how long the pie in the sky in the bye and bye has been going on ...

‘Smoking gun proof’: fossil fuel industry knew of climate danger as early as 1954, documents show

...Experts say the documents show the fossil fuel industry had intimate involvement in the inception of modern climate science, along with its warnings of the severe harm climate change will wreak, only to then publicly deny this science for decades and fund ongoing efforts to delay action on the climate crisis.
“They contain smoking gun proof that by at least 1954, the fossil fuel industry was on notice about the potential for its products to disrupt Earth’s climate on a scale significant to human civilization,” said Geoffrey Supran, an expert in historic climate disinformation at the University of Miami.
“These findings are a startling confirmation that big oil has had its finger on the pulse of academic climate science for 70 years – for twice my lifetime – and a reminder that it continues to do so to this day. They make a mockery of the oil industry’s denial of basic climate science decades later.”
Previous investigations of public and private records have found that major oil companies spent decades conducting their own research into the consequences of burning their product, often to an uncannily accurate degree – a study last year found that Exxon scientists made “breathtakingly” accurate predictions of global heating in the 1970s and 1980s.
The newly discovered documents now show the industry knew of CO2’s potential climate impact as early as 1954 via, strikingly, the work of Keeling, then a 26-year-old Caltech researcher conducting formative work measuring CO2 levels across California and the waters of the Pacific ocean. There is no suggestion that oil and gas funding distorted his research in any way.
The findings of this work would lead the US scientist to further experiments upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii that were to provide a continual status report of the world’s dangerously-rising carbon dioxide composition.
Keeling died in 2005 but his seminal work lives on. Currently, the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 level is 422 parts per million, which is nearly a third higher than the first reading taken in 1958, and a 50% jump on pre-industrial levels.
This essential tracking of the primary heat-trapping gas that has pushed global temperatures to higher than ever previously experienced in human civilization was born, in part, due to the backing of the Air Pollution Foundation.
A total of 18 automotive companies, including Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, gave money to the foundation. Other entities, including banks and retailers, also contributed funding.
Separately, a 1959 memo identifies the American Petroleum Institute (API), the US’s leading oil and gas lobbying body, and the Western Oil and Gas Association, now known as the Western States Petroleum Association, as “major contributors to the funds of the Air Pollution Foundation”. It’s not clear exactly when API started funding the foundation but it had a representative on a research committee from mid-1955 onwards.
A policy statement of the Air Pollution Foundation from 1955 calls the problem of air pollution, which is caused by the emissions of cars, trucks and industrial facilities, “one of the most serious confronting urban areas in California and elsewhere” and that the issue will be addressed via “diligent and honest fact finding, by wise and effective action”...

And so on and on, but enough of the readings, it's time to wrap things up with an infallible Pope...