It's another meditative Sunday, but is it possible to meditate on anything with a shrieking Miranda the Devine howling with rage at the moon and gay marriage?

(Above: and more on the same topic at The New Yorker on a carousel here, and the pond has sampled more below).

The pond is sometimes afflicted with that nightmarish modernist phenomenon, a stream of consciousness, in which thoughts flow like a dripping tap ...

Yesterday, for example, while out and about on the road, stuck in a congested local road, which somehow Mike Baird thinks he'll fix with a tunnel and a motorway, and listening to zinger Bill pontificate on Afghanistan, the pond concluded that it would have to flee the country if he were ever elected PM.

What a dreary, dull man he is, and what a hopeless speaker. For a politician that would seem something of a weakness.

Never mind, the pond once determined to flee the country if the rabbit ever got to eat lettuce and carrots in the lodge, and yet here we are.

And then thoughts of hapless Cisco came to mind, its products now so tainted by the NSA and likely back doors, that they've resorted to subterfuge and posting kits to empty houses to regain their reputation (yes, it's here at The Register). Officialdom is now so intrusive that we all must live in John le Carré land ... thanks TA and BS, how exciting to live in Stasi land ...

And then came news that having invented a method of editing the human genome, scientists now wanted to ban it, in the NY Times here, scientists clearly never having heard of the concept of letting the cat out of the bag.

And then a kindly reader introduced the pond to an American cousin, the Encyclopedia of American Loons. It's on a break at the moment, but what a grand task, what a huge, inexhaustible endeavour ... the pond sometimes looks at the United States and then gets the frights.

So many loons, so little time, and soon Jon Stewart - oh soon enough - the wretched, needlessly cruel to his viewers, heartless man will be gone, and all we'll have to treasure are the memories:

(Found here at Huff Post)

But enough of this brooding, it's a Sunday meditation, and for that we'll need another cartoon to crank and grind the gears into motion:

You see, on a Sunday, Sydney is blessed by a wondrous collection of loons, enough to fill an encyclopaedia, and most of them belong in a bigoted land, owned and run by a senile old American bigot:

Yes that one.

And what about Antarctica? Why soon enough that's going to be free of ice, and ready for a hundred million or more keen farmers ...

But back to the Terror, which is today offering free Soma:

And along with the soma, you're guaranteed lavish servings of loonacy on a regular basis, as the fat owl of the remove goes about the business of dishing out the bile:

Is that what happens when you give up the drugs?

But resplendent and standing above them all is the barking mad, Miranda "hang a greenie from the nearest lamp post, isn't Lord Monckton devine" Devine ...

Take it away Miranda, hit us with a splash:

Yes, unless you happen to ask how much a koala can bear ...

The important thing to understand about a skilled rantist is that they will summon up all the woes of heaven and let them out in one unremitting howl of pain and rage.

Logic isn't required, and can in fact be counter-productive, even fatal. The important thing is to throw everything - yes, you have to sacrifice the kitchen sink - into the argument.

Thus when considering gay marriage, it's important to have marriage in a state of dire crisis.

Of course, there are a few things that can't be used these days. The notion that gay marriage will inevitably lead to dog fucking has to be scrubbed off the list, unless you happen to be Cory Bernardi. Besides, conservatives - you can call them cons if you like - know this line of thinking might upset Chris Kenny.

So let's see how the Devine starts off:

Now that's class. Middle aged women having affairs, fifty shades, vasectomies, open marriages, boring husbands, cuckoldry, no fault divorce - because it was so much better in the 1950s, what with private dicks, cameras and guilt and in flagrante delicto - and sweet long absent lord, soon enough the skies are falling in, and the fornicating apocalypse of fornicators producing bastards is at hand ...

But soon enough the howl of pain will begin to take on a focus, and to settle on the cause, the source, of all the discontent.

It goes without saying that the welfare state will crop up. Because after all, a state without any welfare would be so much better.

Yes, you're beginning to savour the full, rich ripe of paranoia at work, and a nicely honed deeply Catholic persecution complex in full flower ...

Now you might wonder about the intimidation and silencing of contrary voices, given that somehow the Devine has managed to hoist herself to the steeple and shout at all and sundry in a shrieking voice about the injustice of it all ...

You might even wonder when the last time you saw an advertisement promoting gay dating during a Superbowl? You can catch  that ManCrunch ad here, (likely with forced ad), and of course one of the cleverest ways to get attention is to get yourself banned.

There's nothing to say a network should run an advertisement designed to upset the core demographic on hand when it airs ... but when you're a paranoid hysteric, anything can add fuel to the flames ...

But you know for certain, absolute certain, that when someone talks of rank sophistry, there's more than an even money bet that the writer will be indulging in rank sophistry.

As for David van Gend? Just look at the endless stream of consciousness twitter stream:

Hmm. The pond must really get around to that Encyclopaedia of Australian Loons some time ...

But now let's head back to Miranda for a final rant, the wrap up rant that produces the final flowering of bigotry.

Now anyone who had their money on "militant gay thought police" turning up somewhere ... sorry, the pond deemed it such a certainty that it couldn't offer any odds. Please pick up your refund and remember to gamble responsibly:

And there you go, from affairs and fifty shades, to gay marriage ruining the foundational institution of civil society ...

And without once revealing how gay marriage results inevitably in dog fucking, child molesting, and polygamy ...

And with such marvellous logic on display ... including wonderful lines like "it takes gay people to come out and say what straight people are too intimidated to say" ...

Which might well lead the average absent-minded reader to conclude that Miranda the Devine is herself gay, since she seems able to come out and say what straight people are too intimidated to say ...

And how heartwarming to realise that the Devine has devoted followers:

Yes, there's that logic at work again. The haters and the intolerant shouting down the shouter shouting in the town square about the need to hate gay marriage and be intolerant about gay marriage and tar everyone with an interest in the notion as working for the militant gay thought police ...

And yes, there's the standard blather about the silent majority, as if the very afraid Barbara hasn't seen the recent polling on the matter ... or the way that gay marriage will surely come to pass, as it has in many US states and in other countries, and surprisingly without bringing down the foundations of society - yes, it's not possible to blame the state of Greece on its attitude to gay marriages. Or maybe it is ...

Oh I know what some are thinking.

A stroll through Miranda the Devine's hysterical paranoid mind is a bit like wandering through the grubby, furtive pathetic and sordid Catholicism of the 1950s, and we all know where that ended up ... it's on view right now in the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse ...

So much for the rights of children trumping anything ...

Well that's enough Sunday meditating. Time for a few more cartoons: