Or why homophobia is alive and well in the Liberal party and the lizards of Oz ...

The tree-killing front page showed the game was afoot ...

See, look how Peta has been downgraded to a subsidiary box.

Oh sure the digital edition still runs hot with Oz EXCLUSIVES ...

But they're not so EXCLUSIVE anymore, not when the book's out there and Savva turns up on The Insiders - got to pump up the volume and sell the books - and so The Graudian could be all over it too ...

No, Peta's all very well, but the reptiles were shocked, horrified and appalled by outrageous images emanating from the Mardi Gras ... and so were the faithful barking mad fundamentalist Right of the Liberal party that constitutes the remaining solid and loyal lizard Oz readership ...

It was bad enough that image, but it got worse when it turned into a full-on man hug.

Now it's true that at one time Tony Abbott hugged Denis Napthine ... and we learn from Savva that he had a taste for group hugs ...

When Abbott decided national security adviser Andrew Shearer, rather than his chief of staff, should sit in on the talks as note taker, Credlin “took off in a huff”. 
Savva writes: “Returning to the hotel for what was meant to be a brief pit stop before heading back to the plane, Abbott and Credlin went to an anteroom to have it out. “
Everyone else, including the Indonesian authorities, waited. And waited. “And waited. “Finally McMillan opened the door to the anteroom and stuck her head in to remind them there was a whole entourage waiting to go and the roads had been closed. 
“Abbott called her in and insisted on a group hug.”

But that was a manly hug with women and heady perfume in the air, oh the intoxicating perfume of an angry woman in need of consolation ...

It goes without saying that it was utterly unlike the manly hug on display that so shocked, horrified and appalled the reptiles this day ...

And worse there was an eerie, unnatural, feelgood vibe in the air which even infected Albo ...

Standing by for outrage, hysteria, and Malcolm Turnbull doing one of his familiar dodges, duckings and weaves, gormless coward that he is ..

Yes, expressing common humanity and regard is an amazing, appalling thing to the feral homophobic haters of the Right ...

Of course the homophobia needs a bit of window dressing, you know, procedural and structural matters and such like ...

Dennis Jensen, the carbon dioxide in coca cola man? Craig Kelly? Those names ring a bell ...

Time to obfuscate and delay so that the hate campaign can be properly organised and orchestrated ...

Meanwhile, the hapless goose twists and turns in the breeze ...

And now for the icing on the homophobic cake.

It will come as no news to readers of the reptiles that the rag, in its editorial pages, long ago hit on a formula for delay, distraction and obfuscation, with distraction the chief reason to do nothing, and never mind that the endless delaying and obfuscation led to endless distraction, which could produce more complaints about distraction, in a virtuous circle that only lacked virtue ...

Here's how the mealy mouthed formula runs ...

The Australian does not oppose it on principle, provided religious freedoms are respected ...

And here's its latest outing in the editorial pages ...

The reptiles, in their own humble, road-blocking, distracting, tut-tutting, reactionary way, are in the vanguard of the right wing homophobia that litters the Liberal Party, in much the same way as fundamentalist Catholics routinely grace, or disgrace, its opinion pages ...

You can imagine why the pond was too distracted by laughter to read this reptile offering ...

What ideas, what vision thingie?

You mean the gay marriage vision thingie, or perhaps the broadband connectivity thingie other parts of the world managed years ago?

Well after that tour of the reptile sewer of bigotry and negativity, it was time for a laugh from the copper, HFC and nodes man ...

Boom, tish, boom ...