Day 54 of MUC and day 7 of MOC, and the reptiles of Oz seem rattled and nervous ...

Thank the long absent lord for the Daily Terrorist's ability to lead with the best drive-by shooting metaphor they could find. 

After all, on any other day, there'd be a story about gun violence in Sydney's western suburbs - it's what makes them so beloved by the Terrorists - and what better way to celebrate it than to give Malware a bullet proof vest?

The Currish Snail decided that what Malware really needed was a fortress ...

Who knows what they're talking about because in the digital edition the toads are talking about an exclusive poll revealing a swing to Labor in the key battleground of Queensland. 

If that's a fortress, perhaps they should hand Malware the keys to the moat ... or a swamp ...

Meanwhile, the Hunsters are feeling the fear, and the terrorist vibe, always a handy stand-by ...

TERROR! CRISIS! And not just Donald Trump!

But as always it's the reptiles of Oz who transfix the pond, and they seem to be a little nervous. 

Apparently they take the Bolter and his delcon kind seriously, and more importantly, the rich and their super, because the reptiles have always fancied that they own the AB demographic ...

Steeled for backlash, and the same steel can be seen at the top of the digital page this morning ...

Now the pond didn't watch the debate - important business hitting one's head with a baseball bat as a better way to have fun - and so has no idea ...

Remember, the pond gets all its talking points from the reptiles and so is sublimely uninformed and ignorant - and finds it hard to imagine that the droning Bill could do over the glib, smirking harbourside mansion man - oh the pond just loves that nickname and from such an impeccable source - but it seems this steeling and first blood has led to a certain skittishness in the commentariat ...

Just look at the top o' the line digital opinionistas this day ...

Uneasy bedfellows, disunity means death - reality is always the opposite of what prattling Polonius scribbles - and heroic attempts to keep the class war alive with talk of jealous voters and envy politics, and waiter, bring me another hapless member of the lumpenproletariat so that he might be mocked, ridiculed, humiliated and demonised by the full power of rampant Murdochians with the bloodlust in their noses ...

But because the pond is perverse - the reptiles teach well the power of the dark side - it first turned to a newcomer in the reptile commentariat ...

Oh bliss, oh poop, has it come to this?

You see, that's how the reptiles get saddled with pompous prattling burdens like Paul Kelly. 

Spend years fucking up the newspaper and then your right and proper reward is a place in the corner where you can shout at clouds to your heart's content ... no doubt in the hope of fucking up the country as much as the aforesaid grandly fucked-up newspaper ...

This usually leads to a touch of paranoia, tinged with hints of regret and suggestions of non-existent diversity, and so the pond anxiously scoured the piece in the hope of finally finally definitive proof that Manning Clark had been awarded the Order of Lenin ...

Ah the glory days ...

But that was then and the defamation action that never happened, as you can be reminded of in Crikey here, and this is now, the glory days of Lomborg and climate denialism slipping further and further into the past, and so we must press on ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the pond hadn't realised it was possible to be even more tedious than Paul Kelly ...

A tremendous, herculean feat of prose tediously tripping over matters long ago used to wrap fish and chips or fill the full to overflowing intertubes with fast-forgotten digital junk ...

If this is going to be Mitchell's new beat - a belated summary of the week past - perhaps he would be better off retiring to the bedroom with a magazine designed for gentlemen ...

And by the pond's count, only three explicit mentions of that glorious rag, The Australian, a beacon of truth and insight, a font of wisdom in this troubled world ...

This is the price we must all pay for kicking someone out to pasture, or up into the attic so they might get closer to the clouds? It seems so ...

The Townsville Bulletin led as definitive evidence that News Corp isn't an evil empire?

Together with the Daily Terrorists, who kicked off the pond this very day with talk of bullet proof vests?

This prime cocky, a major Mitchell if the pond remembers how to spot a galah Tamworth style, is surely as sublimely delusional as the rest of the reptiles, and provides an explanation of why the Oz became such a wretched rag under his regime ...

Meanwhile, the evil empire spends its relentless energy demonising one hapless individual ...

And the pond is still no closer to confirming that Manning Clark wore the Order of Lenin with pride ...

Ah well, never mind, when in doubt there's always the toaster meme ...

.. also celebrated by David Rowe, and more Rowe here ...