Greetings from an exotic part of the world, bearing the glad tidings of reptiles brooding about Heydongate ...

The pond was browsing through its reading list the other day, and saw all sorts of addresses ... including Foxtel, the ABC, Fairfaxians, assorted universities, and a generous dollop of bureaucrats using their lunchtime to browse the intertubes, while faithfully keeping their noses to the grindstone during working hours ... and if you believe that, have we got a job for you in Canberra promoting the atheist cause in the Census!

And why shouldn't atheists get the donkey vote? The donkey lovers have had a free run for too long ...

There were assorted state libraries, though whether staff or clients who's to say, and a faithful repeat visitor from Longmont Colorado, though whether human or robot or VPN, who can say. Curiously there's no Murdochians. Perhaps they use Dodo.

The pond hopes the Longmont visitor is a CIA robot. Otherwise it must be truly, awesomely dull in Longmont, Colorado if the reptiles of Oz are what passes for entertainment. Still, it's amazing what you can learn if you do a Greg Hunt about far flung corners of the world ...

Well if you're out there, don't be lurkers, though there's nothing wrong with lurking, it's just that the pond would love to hear more from strange lands featuring unutterable thoughts.

There must be more to life than the reptiles of Oz. If there isn't, what are we doing here, what does it all mean?

But enough of the international jet setting lifestyle, because it's time to bore some good citizen using the services of Longmont, Colorado with more tales of reptile woe.

Today we have had a special visitation from Dame Slap, who's feeling so passionate she's turned up on a Friday to do the hard yards. But what set her off?

Uh oh.

There's the problem, right there, what with all the delays and the obfuscations and the confusions, how can a reptile make a solid defence?

How can reptiles agree, and live in harmony?

Oh dear, it seems that the Dame is in something of a terminal state, frothing and foaming and stamping feet. Let's get closer to see - careful, reptiles have sharp claws and are known to bite, and granny's tale of a goanna up her skirt still lives deep in the pond's memory bank:

Now by about this point, it becomes clear that Dame Slap actually doesn't have much to contribute, beyond unions and Labor and two legs bad, Heydon and four legs good.

So what's left? Well it turns out that all that remains is petulance and indignant foot-stamping:

There is of course a middle way. Voters might also remember a clearly politicised hatchet job designed to take down Julia Gillard and drag Shorten through the mud, and the man in charge was so indifferent to the sensitivities involved that he lectured Shorten in a patrician way, but overlooked some crucial details which suggested he needed to look a little further than the pince-nez on his nose.

Oh okay, they're not really Roosevelt's glasses, but you catch the drift.

Now the pond has no dog in this fight - in fact, it's the pond's proud boast, repeated interminably, to have been declared black by a union early in its working life, and the pond is startled by union corruption. But that includes matters alleged to have involved Kathy Jackson as much as others, and when talking of corruption, let's not forget the naked corruption at the big end of town, especially in the financial services and property development sector. You need to bung on a really big wedding for anyone to notice in Sydney town these days ...

The notion that this federal government would produce a Royal Commission on corruption in these sectors is laughable, and that's why all the blather about lynching Heydon is just rhetoric of the Dame "the UN is using climate science to introduce a world government" Slap kind ...

In the end, there's a sense that Dame Slap realises what these interminable delays are pointing to, on the Monday coming, which is why she has to call, old testament prophet style, on the voters to cast a final judgment.

A recent artist's impression of Dame Slap:

She clearly had such high hopes - a chance to destroy the unions and the Billistas - and now all she can do is fling her hands high in the air, and invoke the avenging voter.

With the polls running 46-54, good luck with that form of vengeance.

But it suggests why things are heating up in reptile la la land, and why they're in such disarray.

You see, even Merritt the Oz reptile legal meteor has been forced to point out the bleeding obvious to his fellow reptiles:

Indeed, indeed. If he tries to stay, he loses. If he goes, something might be retrieved from the mess. Not much, but something. But the endless delays and the obfuscations don't do any good for him or the politicians who set the train wreck in motion.

Merritt spends a long time noting the bleeding obvious, while doing a marvellous dance around the point:

Actually, only lawyers can be bothered with this sort of intricacy, up there with the original Watergate and all the other arcane carry-ons that turn up when a hanging judge finds himself in trouble ...

But this is where it gets poignant, because Dame Slap can't see any problem at all. Who cares if a royal commissioner, she scribbles, accepted, then declined, to give a legal lecture to a group of Liberal lawyers. And perhaps in the process kicked over the till for a noble cause …

Everyone knows what it's all about, and to see why she's so insouciant about the notion of bias and apprehension of bias, we only have to revert to what the Captain himself said as to the intent and purpose and nature of the Royal Commission:

Indeed, indeed. Talk about Captain foot in mouth. An important part of cleaning up the Labor Party.

Is it possible to imagine a more naked statement of bias and political intent?

Now imagine the Labor party appointing a Royal Commission to clean up the Liberal party and its corporate backers ...

Yes, the pond has always wondered about that Pauline Hanson fund and the uses made of it by captain courageous ...

 But the cries of lynch mob and witch hunt would resound up and down the land ...

No wonder the reptiles are bewildered and confused. Things are heating up as the Canning can reaches the point where it can't be kicked much further down the road ...

Which perhaps explains why, good citizens of Colorado, other fronts are on the move (and please check out the Fairfax cartoonists here):