When reptiles bicker, squabble, and fight tooth and claw, there will be indignation ...

It was only because the pond's partner brought back a copy of the lizard Oz rag from the airport - yes, they still strew the tree killer edition all over the place like free graffiti or useless ticker tape, in a pathetic attempt to deceive their advertisers - that the pond became aware that the epic fight between the reptile Bolter and the lizard Oz was still on ...

Here's the story that caught the eye on Friday, now faithfully transcribed by the pond ... (click to enlarge)

Andrew Bolt a sook?

Well yes, he's the sort of fussy, finicky, over-sensitive, precious, preening, punctilious, petulant,  peevish, petty, touchy, grouchy, self-regarding sort of narcissist who can easily bung on an epic sook ...

And sure enough, if you head off to the Bolter's blog, he's in epic meltdown mode.

Now usually the pond avoids the Bolter - visiting the dentist twice a day for a month for root canal therapy seems a much more sensible and enjoyable lifestyle choice.

But the Bolter in meltdown mode, what fun it is to see...

No wonder the reptiles at the Oz poke and prod him with a stick. He's too dumb and too egotistical to see what fun it is to shove the stick in the ant's nest and see the ant race around.

This very day the Bolter bit again like an all day sucker, scribbling A good paper, now too eager by half ... which had in google the header the campaigning's fine, the bullying's not as if the Bolter isn't himself a hectoring bully of the first water.

It was a response to the Cut and Paste piece, and the Bolter used Geoffrey Luck in Quadrant to do his dirty work ...

And then he added an update, in which he claimed that the Australian was regarding him as their worst nightmare, for running this piece of whimsy:

Well indeed, the drift is obvious enough, the point driven home with a hammer. Like many bloggers, the Bolter is a shameless rip-off merchant, reprinting the thoughts of others, taking chunks of the Oz from behind the paywall and replicating it in his blog, and generally getting his talking points from others, but claiming it all for his own grandiose eponymous stage.

That's how he can be so prolific - you cut and you paste, and repeat and repeat.

The Bolter is, in his own way, just a small scale but equally shameless version of the copy purloining done by Arianna Huffington's mob at the Huff Post ...

It's easy enough to point this out, and point it out the Oz did at great length, and naturally, in the spirit of the Bolter and the Huffing and Puffing, the pond clipped the rest of it too:

And worse, the Bolter in his update next noted another example of the hatred beyond belief festering in the hearts of Oz reptiles, which he detected in a scribe scribbling furiously Blatter may be proved to be the Armstrong of administration.

This is the bit in the piece that no doubt got the Bolter going, calling it "childish abuse" and asking "Should I pay rent for occupying the minds of such journalists?"

The Bolter divisive for calling a little dance a "dance of hate"?

Who'd have guessed it?

What does this sensitive soul make of the haka?

But then anyone who's gone within cooee of the Bolter knows that he fears and loathes Adam Goodes and will do and say anything to take him down ...

There's something deeply bizarre in that, but we'll leave it to the shrinks to explain.

By the end of the piece, the Bolter was keening and moaning:

... seriously, another three pieces in just one edition of The Australian dedicated to proving a columnist in another News Corp newspaper wrong, hateful and a user? Is The Australian in healthy hands?

Indeed. It's in Rupert Murdoch's hands, so who could argue with that question ...

But of course it's also beyond the Bolter's ken to understand the superb irony in the implicit notion that he has healthy hands (and who knows, maybe a healthy heart and a healthy mind).

There's even more amongst the usual Bolter hate fest of fear and loathing and indignation, if you can be bothered trawling through the sewer and the cesspit, but the pond only got to this piece before the laughter took too strong a hold:

Ouch. Sensible conservatives should cancel their subs for the reptiles indulging in a feral vendetta. As if the Bolter was some kind of pussy cat ...

As if being a conservative in a Murdoch rag gave said conservative the sort of free pass you might get from wielding garlic, silver bullets, crosses and wooden stakes ...

As for the piece in Strewth to which the navel-contemplating Bolter took so kindly, it ran like this:

Well there's a sop for a thin-skinned fop ...

What to do?

Well there's only one thing for it. There must be more reptile in-fighting, there must be more fussing and feuding, and not just a few jabs with a stick ...

Let there be blood!

As for the pond ... what to do when surrounded by fearsome feuding reptiles? Approach with care?

Nope, perhaps it's just best to look at a David Pope cartoon, and be reminded that away from the navel gazing, feuding reptiles, there's some sanity  to be seen elsewhere in the world ... and as always more papal insights here.