In which the pond goes out into the real world for a break from the reptile madness and mayhem ...

To use a Donaldism, the pond has only one shot in its locker today - pressure of business will be taking it out and about, and away from lunchtime fun and the ultimate decision, so which to chose?

The thing about a murmuration of reptiles is that it usually swirls around the same old, the same old ... Triggs, 18C ...

So there's the reptiles and Dame Slap in from planet Janet doing the usual schtick ...

The pond is so over Triggs and 18C.

But there's a fresh novelty  ... giving space to a barking mad fundamentalist moaning about being maligned, right below planet Janet berating the nation for turning into a bunch of namby pamby offence-takers ...

... which apparently isn't the same as being a bunch of namby pamby offence recorders, at least when the ABC can be dropped in it for reporting that a barking mad bigot is indeed a bigot ...

Oh and did we say Triggs? And 18C?

And then there's Freedom Boy, though the pond has to note that the pond recently caught up with Freedom Boy on the telly, and he looked tremendously worn and frayed, not a bit like his reptile library photo ...

Is that what happens when a needle gets stuck in the old 78 rpm groove and keeps scratching away at the shellac?

Then there's the usual over at the Terror ...

The rabid Devine ranting in her usual rabid way about Safe Schools, or a man, one Seb Starcevic , mansplaining how unashamedly modern women embrace Playboy - as if Hugh Hefner were still some kind of thing - along with the hijab.

Seb makes a powerful case for a new form of stupidity to be noted, all the more so because it offers the bizarre sight of a writer for the Independent straying into the belly of the News Corp beast ...

Here's the thing. The hijab isn't a badge of womanhood, it's a sign of a religion, and a deeply silly religion at that.

No worse than the nonsense about Adam and complimentary Anglican woman Eve, and giant floods and burning bushes and all that, but certainly no virgins in heaven better ...

Now the pond is an equal offender when it comes to this sort of stuff. The pond flinches when it spots a nun, recoils when it sees a fish symbol on the back of a car, gasps when it sees a yarmulke and notes it at work hiding a bald spot, marvels that anyone would wear a T-shirt featuring, in no particular order, Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Mao, Stalin or Hitler, and is sent into a frenzy by anyone with a baseball cap reading "Make America Great Again."

The pond doesn't mind those who want to wear symbols, faces, signs or logos, though it's helpful when said symbols are best presented in the context of a man  who ends up in an asylum tending flowers.

Sure, he's successfully impregnated his ex-wife, but is happiest dressed as a gorilla, and is even willing to let Irene Handl steal the show as his working class mum, mourning a lost world of Marxism that will never be ...

But enough of Morgan, because likely enough we're all suitable cases for treatment.

Delusions come in all forms and all sizes, and wearers are free to advertise their delusions as they like, but the pond reserves the right to react with a smirk when confronted by the dress of a Hasidic Jew, or an Amish person cruising along in horse and buggy, or a nun in full gear, or a woman wearing a hijab ...

You see Seb, these things aren't badges of personhood, whether manhood or womanhood, they're badges of ideology or theology or simple plain stupidity - though the pond admits it's been awhile since it's seen a T-shirt carrying the face of either John Travolta or Tom Cruise, and it will grudgingly allow without much comment a T-shirt decorated with a Flying Spaghetti Monster or an alien reptile about to take over the planet (allowing with Malcolm Roberts that the bankers and the Jews might have already performed this feat for climate science), on the grounds that everyone has the right to feeble satirical flourishes ...

At the same time, the pond supports the right for people to wear whatever they like. It provides a basis for an instant, dismissive judgement. No need to talk politics or religion with anyone wearing a horror clown mask ...

But really Seb, you being a man, it's a tad rich for you to scribble how wearing a male-ordained and approved object shows the resilience of females in a world determined to control every aspect of their being.

There is something veiled about that, and there's something very veiled in your scribbling, and if you want the pond to pay heed, you won't start off a piece extolling Playboy ...

...headscarves are becoming increasingly visible in mainstream media. Last month’s edition of Playboy featured a hijab-wearing model, journalist Noor Tagouri, for the first time in the magazine’s long history, while Muslim beauty blogger Nura Afia is set to become CoverGirl’s newest ambassador.

The pond's acutely aware of Playboy's long history and men reading it for the articles ...

As Groucho Marx once sort of observed, the pond doesn't care to belong to any club that will accept that women are rabbits ... 

Now the aforementioned horror clown show, otherwise known as the American presidential election race, brings a final flurry of reptile riches this day ...

Given all these wondrous riches, it seems truly perverse on the part of the pond finally to settle for the Oz editorialist ...

But as this is a day for last rites, the pond thought it provided an opportunity for a last rant.

The American presidential election provided a challenge for the wishy washy mamby pamby media, purporting even-handed balance in its coverage, because the straight-laced types didn't know how to deal with a lying, cheating, shameless humbug demagogue veering off into authoritarian fascist la la land ...

Even to the last, the Donald failed to release his tax returns, breaking a forty year convention, and in the end, it was greeted with a kind of 'Donald will be Donald' shrug ...

But in the course of the campaign, the pond exposed itself in the manner of a doctor trying a little self-experimentation - go on, if you're in the mood, you can Greg Hunt Self-experimentation in medicine ...

Yes, the pond willingly exposed itself to Fox News, and discovered a Boschian nightmare ...

See if you can spot Sean Hannity and Bill Orally ... they're in there somewhere, the pond is certain of it ...

Over here, we're inoculated from the worst of it ... the Oz reptiles are still learning the trade of crazed crusaders, intent on creating angry, alienated hate mongers ready to be ruled by an authoritarian demagogue ...

But still, the one thing you won't read in the Oz editorial is any acknowledgment of the vile role that Fox News, Hannity, Orally, and the like played in the destruction of the GOP and the elevation of the Donald ...

Uh huh. But here's the thing. Routinely, the local reptiles demonise anyone with a college degree, and trot them out as examples of out of touch smug 'leets, as opposed to the multi-millionaire who poses as PM and does his best to produce the right sort of tax break for the already rich ...

And the Donald's ugly knack is exactly the same knack as the reptiles themselves exercise on a daily basis, whether it be the crusade against Safe Schools, the crusade against climate science and gay marriage, the crusade against Triggs, the crusade against 18C ...

Endless crusading, and sweet bugger all to show for it, except bitterness, anger, unhappiness and discontent ...

Which is why it's so rich for the reptiles to lecture the world about the Donald ... while at the same time peddling the same old routines about the Clintons, and facilitating and enabling exactly the same ugly demonising Donaldisms, in a way that shamelessly panders to Malware's pandering to the extreme right to stay in power...

Oh spare the pond the stuff about America's great democracy rising to meet the formidable challenges.

Already Republicans, with the consent and approval of the squawkers at Fox, are talking of impeaching Clinton within hours of her swearing in ...

Well the pond will be out and about when the final call will be made, but it does so wish this that it could add an amendment to this headline ...

Stop the Murdoch reptile con doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but today, why not send to the dog house any subscription to any News Corp publication that might be lurking in the home. 

There must be more socially beneficial and useful ways to score a tax break or simply piss money against the wall ... 

In the usual way, the infallible Pope nails it, along with the deplorable behaviour of the mutton Dutton and the complicit Malware and the facilitating, enabling reptiles, catering to the mutton's latest craziness (and more papal infallibility here) ...

And as it's the pond's last shot for the day, here's a Rowe, though it's a pity that News Corp and Faux Noise wasn't amongst his road kill (and more Rowe here).