In which the pond considers the risk of reading the reptiles of Oz ... watch out for exploding ginger beer bottles and angry old white men shouting at clouds ...

Assorted reptiles have been extremely agitated of late at the arrival of a genuinely barking mad senator in Canberra, and on so few votes ...

Some were keen to point out that he was even weirder than the Bolter ...

But here's the thing that the pond has been patiently trying to explain to the reptiles for years.

In many essential aspects, the Bolter and the likes of Roberts are in harmony ...

Roberts appeared on Bolt’s radio show with Steve Price on 2GB last night where the issue (Jewish bankers) was discussed. Bolt indicated that the issue of the banking families involved (including the Rothschilds) remains a sticking point for him, but said no one could deny that Roberts was well-researched on the issue of climate change. Roberts said that he didn’t think religion was connected to the climate change “corruption” but reiterated his theories about the international banks. 
The Galileo Movement still boasts advisers of the usual cabal of climate change sceptics including Ian Plimer, David Flint and Lord Christopher Monckton. The movement’s patron is 2GB’s Alan Jones. (Crikey, here).

Yes, he might be barking mad, but in the Bolter's eyes, he's a top notch climate scientist all the same ...

And is there any difference between the Bolter and Dame Slap chumming around with Viscount Monckton - or Dame Slap peddling Monckton's wild-eyed UN world government climate science conspiracy theory - and the madness at the heart of the Galileo paranoid conspiracy movement?

This is how the GOP ended up with Donald Trump as their candidate. The seemingly normal irrational candidates giving way to the deeply irrational barking mad candidates ... all thanks to the encouragement of reptiles inclined to explore the deep end.

Here we can also thank Malware and Richard di Natale, still blathering on about democracy in action, but too clever by half in their hopes and expectations, and with di Natale rewarded with the loss of a Senate seat, and Malware rewarded with...? Well let Pope answer in a cartoon ... (and more Pope here).

Now with that array to hand for the foreseeable future, the pond could, if it liked, construct a column a day out of the truly barking mad, but there's no fun in it.

You only had to see Roberts in his press conference (screened as it happened on News 24, the Sky version on YouTube here) or read some of his pieces on the Galileo site or his sovereign citizen letter to Julia Gillard (Fairfax it here) to realise here was someone at the very deepest end of the pool.

Well just as it rarely has a cup of tea with the Bolter, the pond rarely bothers to go to the deep end of the pool. It's just too rich, too teeming with strangeness and weirdness ... in much the same way as the pond can't handle ...

Oh come on, come on, 70% gives you the flavour and an actual texture, as opposed to that crumbling fanatical bone-dry intensity.

Which is why the pond remains loyal to the reptiles of Oz, because they have the sort of teeming madness that spills out into the community and starts the fermentation, like a ginger beer plant. As a result, you get some exploding bottles and the occasional refreshing drink.

Look at this day's top of the digital page line-up (Polonius is there, but as usual these days has been dropped down the chart):

Now if you can't get an exploding ginger beer bottle sending a fermented brew into the land out of that lot...

Naturally the pond went for the top of the page safe pair of hands ...

Paul "Ned" Kelly, always standing by and always, ready to snatch the crown of awesome portentous prattling bore and angry white man shouter at clouds from hapless Polonius, was in solid form ...

This one was a ripper, though in the usual Ned way, it was also extremely long, so mountaineers and pondees should be fully kitted for the climb ...

Now surely the views from the mountain compensate for the rarefied air ...

Poor old Langton discovered the dangers of consorting with the reptiles in the matter of Leak (New Matilda here), and posted a tweet linking to a disapproving piece on SBS here.

...Langton said she was not comfortable being used in the defence of the cartoon when approached by Guardian Australia. 
 “I am not ‘comfortable’ with my words being used to justify Leak’s cartoon,” she said in a statement. “He has crossed a line by stereotyping all Aboriginal dads as losers. This is wrong. 
 “So glad that I have had the opportunity to contribute to another useless gotcha moment instead of concentrating on the serious issues.” (Graudian here).

But you won't find any saucy doubts or fears, or subtlety or nuance in an angry old white voice determined to shout at clouds, and so let the shouting continue ...

Again there's some wondrous commentary there. You might not realise, if you happened to be a Martian arriving down under, that a 64 year old chiropractor copped an eight month suspended jail sentence for the abuse he sent the way of Peris. (Fairfax it and the bleeped out offending language here).  

Should any of that have been a consideration or at least a footnote in the portentous pompous one's ramblings?

Of course not, that's just an example of tad extreme "critical judgement" and a valid matter of public interest.

And so to the waffle man's final stinking pile of waffle as he ploughs on, determined to cause offence... because whites have always been able to cause offence to poofters, uppity blacks, difficult bitches, invading Asians, filthy Islamics, and all the other nuisances...

Oh no, knock the pond down with a feather. Not the spirit of Orwell - rampant socialist - where does Kelly stand on socialism? - and proud atheist Voltaire - J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m'a exaucé - where does the goose Ned stand on atheism? - being led in yet another piece by an ahistorical reptile in the Catholic Boys' Daily ...

Actually, that clarion call for the old Australian character to return reminded the pond of the magazine that Kelly should really be writing for, and the vintage most suited to his opinions ... and it didn't feature Orwell or Voltaire ... but it surely would have carried pieces rambling on about social media and mass hysteria ... while the elephant in the room completely destroys the GOP in no small part thanks to Faux Noise ...

Oh yes, a grand old vision to be sure ... a great club and with the right to offend anyone deemed to be offensive ...