It's whip-cracking reptile round-up time ...

(Above: ah the smell of napalm and Rowe in the morning, and more Rowe here, because that crusader riff just keeps on giving).

It's time for a Calamity Jane style whip-cracking round up of the reptiles, the day after the near death experience - and having had one recently, the pond is acutely aware of how weak, feeble and hapless it leaves you.

Talk about good government starting today, because it was fucked yesterday and for nigh on 17 months - oh the man's a verbal minefield, and no way can you row back by saying good government starts each and every day.

Then there was the notion of socialising the discussion before finalising it. So now he's a socialist?

And 'trust me, I can change'? When anyone says that - like a used car salesman, a real estate agent, or a politician - the pond immediately remembers the story of the scorpion hitching a ride with the frog:

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. 
A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. 
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?" 
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back. 
"I could not help myself. It is my nature." 
Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river. (the lead-up in this over-egged version here).

First let's get the jokes out of the way. It turns out that the Fairfaxians just loved the great photo the pond loved yesterday:

The pond reckons The Canberra Times wins that headline competition.

And now back to the grim, harsh reality.

When will that silly, hapless Senator Sean Edwards realise he's been dudded, is both a fuckwit and a fool, and has sold his leadership vote for a mess of pottage?

Nobody knows what a "competitive evaluation process" means, everybody knows that Japan wants to keep its technology and the build to itself, the government team returned to power have no interest in repeating the Collins class experiment and starting from scratch, and all that's happened, in the usual Abbott tactical way - he doesn't have a strategic bone in his body - is that the can has been kicked down the road until the end of the year. Still with absolutely no guarantee that South Australia will get a share in the build.

Yes, everybody's in an uproar already at this piece of sublime futtockry:

The head of the Defence Teaming Centre in Adelaide, Chris Burns, said the defence industry needed clarity but the language now being used by the Federal Government was worrying. 
"The industry has been sitting poised, ready to engage in this process for some time now and if there is re-wording and they're using different terms we need to understand what those terms are and what industry has to do to be competitive in that process," he said. 
"I would hope a competitive process is based on the establishment of a submarine authority and then that authority then oversees an open and transparent tender process and the evaluation of those tenders and eventually the appointing of a contract." (ABC here).

In your dreams baby ... but the 'Tiser ran with the nonsense on its front page:

Yes, "Defence Minister jets in to throw SA subs lifeline" is followed by "as senior Libs squabble".

A day after the corrupt offer of a bribe for a leadership vote, and already the fallout begins...

Like so many Abbott captain's calls - though in this case it should be called captain's bribery and corruption - done for tactical reasons, without any regard for strategic, long term issues, this one will be a slow burner, but there will be betrayal and knock down feuding, and the odds are that Edwards and the crow eaters will be dissed ... and another submarine fiasco will ensue ...

So much for a strong government making tough decisions ...

As for the other reptiles, the Daily Terror surely wins the award for the most misleading and outrageous headline:

Six ministers amongst the traitors? So the Terror had a surveillance camera inside the party room and spotting the turncoats casting their secret votes? Or did they 'fess up to the Terror?

This is called a newspaper? Even a humble blogger would feel deep shame peddling that sort of speculative tripe.

But it says everything about the paranoid 'rats in the ranks' attitude that infests the Terror, the most outrageous tabloid in the land ...

But things were equally desperate and pathetic in the HUN as they gave the PM a warning as he strolled into the last chance saloon:

The list of things to do, the marching orders, are so vague and vacuous and meaningless, it's a guarantee that Abbott will fail. Just as for the past 17 months or so we've endured ham-fisted ineptness:

They'll be less ham-fisted? They'll still be ham-fisted, but they'll be less? Oi vey, who thought Erica would try to outdo "good government starts today"?

But as always, the pond must finally turn to the reptiles of the lizard Oz. The poor dears are in a state of turmoil, of complete agitation and ongoing despair, as if an egg-eating snake had got into the nest:

'Trust me, I can change'? Trust me I can change? I've delivered bad government for some 17 months, but I've put it and Satan behind me?

Oh dear, it's the 'scorpion and the frog' routine writ large but it seems the world's greatest climate scientist is in despair:

So now it's going to get better, except Moorice says it isn't?

And all Abbott can still talk about is fighting, fighting Labor, but inept at fighting his own kind?

Well there's a rub, and today it comes with the gloomy despondency of Dame Slap. Usually she's feisty, but today she's as despairing as Moorice:

Now it's not a new thought. Others have come up with that line:

May? That's generous.

But let's return to Dame Slap, as she dons the sackcloth and ashes:

The pond just loves the way pugilistic metaphors follow Abbott like a blowfly hunts out cow pats, and there we are, Dame Slap still wondering, 17 months or so into government, whether Abbott will ever transform into an effective prime minister, as once again he played the negative card to save his leadership.

So much for change. As if bully bovver boys suddenly see the light, get the call to Christ and turn into a cucumber sandwich-eating English vicar ...

But Dame Slap was just warming up. Oh sure, she tries to soften the blow, by explaining it was a genteel attempt at a coup, not like filthy vulgar Labor, but once that's set aside, it's back to the jugular of an out-of-touch PM:

Well can they? Whither jolly Joe? Whither the poodle? Or maybe that should be wither jolly Joe, wither poodle?

While on and on Dame Slap rants:

Conclusion? Once upon a time the pond would have been laughing at Dame Slap's climate change UN world government conspiracy theories ...

Now it seems she's being forced to confront the real world, and the consequences of delusionalism.

Abbott's pain is only beginning. It might have been a near death experience, but soon enough he's going to feel like a blogger in Saudi Arabia, death by a thousand lashes ... and yet still we kow tow to the forces that have funded fundamentalist Wahhabist thinking around the world ...

Sorry, that hoppy Wahhabist toad just straggled in from the pond's paddock reserved for constant grievances - there, look, up in the corner near the top paddock, you can see Malcolm Turnbull talking to the NBN cow, soothing it with a reminder how in parliament yesterday he said HFC is the solution for 1GB delivery, while this very morning, using the very same magical HFC,  the pond is struggling to upload an image the size of a postage stamp ...

Hey ho, nonny no, on we go, and for those who hoped that Abbott would disappear yesterday, and that it was wrong for the pond to dance with glee that the battered boxer had returned for yet another pummelling, clearly they didn't understand the sheer untrammelled joy of seeing Dame Slap in the slough of despond, the pit of abject despair ... berating her fallen idol.

Where is your messiah Abbott now, Dame Slap?

Yes, no matter how hard they stuff him back into the box, the jester is ready to spring a surprise. Take it away Mr Pope, and more Pope here:

And now, though it's a bit late, kudos to the wag that came up with this one, source unknown to the pond:

And let's not forget Moir, and more Moir here, as the relentless drip of opinion polls will begin to wear away and exfoliate the stone: