In which the pond suggests people forget the flowers, and instead proposes owners send their dogs to Canberra, so they can do their national duty ...

As official scrutiniser of the reptiles (up there as a job with Frank Zappa's Central Scrutinizer in Joe's Garage),  the pond pored and pored over the front page of the reptile parade today.

Where had it gone? Who had misplaced it?

Oh sure, there was the delusional sight of heavily entitled jolly Joe swiftly pivoting from talk of a budget disaster and the financial apocalypse and the end of the age of entitlement to the way we're all entitled to a tax cut ... because the rich can never have enough breaks and what we need is an expansion of the regressive GST because the rich can afford it better ...

No, not that sort of top of the front page guff which so suits the reptile angry old white male agenda.

The pond was thinking of the latest Newspoll findings, once trumpeted at every chance across the front page.

Ah, there they are:

Well you wouldn't want that on the front page, would you?

Instead the reptiles were in full flight doing their best to drum up fear and loathing:

It was picked up by most of the Terror-related tabloids, though some featured the loss of a different Captain.

And at the same time the other Captain - a man notorious for his picks - was attempting a supreme act of self-abnegation, which can be decoded as the denial or abasement of oneself:

Mr Abbott yesterday refused to buy into who he thought should become the next Speaker. 
“I’m not going to indicate a preference because I’m just one vote in the party room. That’s all I am, just one vote in the party room,’’ he said. 
“There are a number of people who have indicated they’re likely to run. All of them are my friends and my colleagues. All of them have my respect.”

He's just a useless single vote with nary a view on anything. Now that's leadership!

What's the bet he also doesn't catch the team bus? And what's the chance the new Speaker doesn't attend Liberal party meetings? Don't expect any insight from mealy mouth.

It got the pond to thinking as to when Abbott might pass. Now as Bob Hawke showed, it can happen pretty late in the game. Hayden went 3rd February, silly Mal bunged on a do, and by the 11th March 1983, Bob was off to see the geegee.

Notice the parallel and the synchronicity - it was Bob's duty to take down Bill and big Mal.

The question is what it will take to dynamite Abbott out, given that he's had so many last warnings, and shown no capacity for change.

His strength - an inflexibility and a blind loyalty to silly people and quaint ideas - is also his kryptonite, as Bronnie showed. The whole entitlements saga blossomed out of control into an unmanageable catastrophe for both sides because of Abbott's inflexibility and loyalty. A good politician would have cut her adrift, but for all his macho posturing, Abbott is only tough on the opposition - not on himself or his friends.

It got the pond to thinking again what it would take to whip up the leadership speculation again. For the moment the election of the Speaker - who cares about the result? - will quench the thirst for elections, but soon enough the posturing will begin again, because as surely as the sun rises Abbott will stick his foot in it.

Now the pond is inclined to rule out big Mal - he's still on the nose with the hard right, and if there's going to be a softer face presented, it's likely to be Julie Bishop, though she has the disadvantage of being female in a relentlessly misogynist party.

It was The Insiders yesterday that provided the pond with the revelation of Scott Morrison's active jockeying for the job.

Now the pond never reads The Australian Women's Weekly - it holds the magazine in a disdain only slightly lower than that reserved for magazines of the Playboy and Zoo school. Well at least it has the odd useful recipe when it turns up in the doctor's waiting room.

So the pond entirely missed Morrison's declaration that he was running, done via a photo spread.

That's what happens when you're not a part of the Twitterati, because Phillip Coorey has been having a fine old time twittering away here:

As Coorey noted, it's the old "family profile in the Australian Women's Weekly" trick! At his Facebook post here ...

Coorey was so entranced he had another twitter at it:

The best bit is a Vicks VapoRub ad?

Not that he's a barking mad clap happy with truly weird and strange beliefs?

Happily Coorey's AFR colleague Will Glasgow was on hand to note what the pond had missed, and make any attempt to read the Women's Weekly redundant, here:

Moving up the magazine food chain, how good is editor-in-chief Helen McCabe's profile of would-be Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the current Women's Weekly? 
Here are our five favourite revelations. 
1. The young ScoMo was once the Vicks Vaporub kid in the 1970s television commercials. (ScoMo claims it was actually an ad for Vicks cough drops.) 
2. The current ScoMo has admitted to getting drunk – once. 
3. ScoMo had sensational curls on his wedding day. 
4. ScoMo is a big fan of Tina Arena – he plays the pop star's music on his regular Saturday cooking night. 
5.ScoMo cries. 
Go get a copy to stick it on the fridge. 

Tina Arena!

Thanks Mr Glasgow, the pond can think of many places in which to stick it, but it isn't the fridge.

Never mind, it's now official, Morrison is running and running hard.

Of course in the old days such a naked statement of intent ...

... would have produced a withering and contemptuous response in the reptiles ...

But when the country needs a barking mad clap happy to lead it, you can bet the local reptiles will take their orders from the international conspiracy centred on Chairman Rupert's New York bunker (well, if it's good enough to blame the UN for world conspiracies, why not give the Chairman a share?)

Theoretically, the best hope the Liberal party has is to ditch Abbott, in a 'new broom promises reform just as he stopped the boats' way, and Morrison has set his hat for the crown. And frankly with a bit of a blow torch, and a relentless demonising campaign from the reptiles - already started - Bill could be given a shake and turned into a drover's dog.

But will ScoMo make an early run and give himself time, or will he try to do a Bob and wait until the final moment?

Only time will shortly tell, but in the meantime, is there anyone who will make the case for Bronnie?

Oh dear:

Is it only the pond that finds something queasy, nay nauseating, in the way the Bolter writes?

...I now feel dirty at having helped to tear down Bishop by joining in — even leading — calls for her to resign. 
How naive I am. See, even though Bishop is a fellow conservative, I believe in the principle of one law for all, regardless of tribe. 
Guess I was on my own there, along with a handful of other conservative commentators. 
There we were, insisting that a sorry woman be punished in a way a shameless man won’t be. 
What berks we were. I’m very sorry, Bronwyn. How unfair that you alone were held to a standard no one else need meet.

What a prize gherkin.

It seems it's a double Bolter day:

But the pond will leave that one to others.

There's only a limited amount of time in a day that the pond cares to spend with legally convicted racists ...

Instead let's see that report card from reptile Phillip Hudson, noted earlier:

And how do the reptiles think Abbott is going to fix his fortunes? How should he go about the job?

By putting his faith and his loyalty in the poodle!

Truly, the pond never makes this stuff up.

Finally a message from a devoted Tony Abbott supporter who wants you to send flowers and conduct a civil debate, in a movement that has enough cash to splurge on a full page ad in the reptile rag today:

That tweet links to this Facebook posting:

And this:

So there's Tony Abbott's core, die hard supporters on the march.

The barking mad send flowers to Canberra ...

Could the pond suggest that dog owners now have a duty they must demand of the dogs?

Unfortunately the pond doesn't have one, but luckily, with the two Davids - Pope and Rowe - on their Monday break, the pond was sent a photo from the facetubes, which instead of reading thousands of useless reptile words, summarised very succinctly - and much more clearly - both Abbott's current situation and what dog owners must now demand of their dogs as a national duty: