In which the pond maintains the right to harass the reptiles, be they the meteoric Merritt, Freedom Boi or the cawing Crowe ...

There are days when, even with the pond's deliberately, shockingly low standards, the lizard Oz becomes unreadable ...

These are the days of 18C ... such as when Chris Merritt scribbles about a reader, in a column which is given a high up the front page digital posse comitatus position.

Merritt dares to talk about the moral vanity of the reader, not pausing to think of the moral vanity that gives him the front page clout and a preening position readers would only dare to dream about ....

Meanwhile, down in the allegedly serious section of the opinion pages ...

Dear long absent lord. Two on 18C and Weisser on the ABC.

But the pond's Friday is supposed to be a time of winding down, of anticipation of the weekend to come, of being served cut-price coffee by poor people working for a shilling and no sixpence ...

Never mind, the pond will begin the long, wearying trudge, which has become almost unendurable, starting with Merritt and his meteors slamming into a readership that's slipping away ...

Now usually this sort of creepy unctuous Uriah Heepish response, full of moral vanity and preening, might occupy the pond for a lot longer, as it wondered why anyone would bother to drag out of the email cupboard some correspondence and dress it up as a front page story, allegedly with satirical intent, but really revealing what a total doofus and dropkick Chris Merritt is ...

But the pond must move on, and quickly because Freedom Boy also calls ...

Before proceeding, the pond would just like to note that it's quite evident that Merritt of the meteor felt harassed by his reader's tirades ...  big sook excited by caps that he is ... and this will come in handy when contemplating Freedom Boy's contribution ...

Equal protection? So Merritt's reader is going to be given the same space and the same prominent digital position in reply?

Not likely, especially if they like to use caps, which last time the pond checked was also a stylistic choice of the POTUS the reptiles love to celebrate ...

Meanwhile, the leaker goes on dribbling into his reptile gallery with tremendously witty and clever cartoons ...

Never mind, after pausing for gusts of laughter to subside, the pond returned to Freedom Boy ...

Harassment and intimidation are objective?

Here's the thing. The pond is a trolling blog. Its objective, undiluted, is to harass the reptiles, day in, day out.

If the reptiles' circulation drops, then the pond might share in the blame of this "objective harm".

If incidentally the reptiles are intimidated, and stop running columns which abuse their readership, in the meteoric Merritt style, while sarcastically thanking them for reading the lizard Oz, why so much the better ...

Why a rag should celebrate a war with its readers is beyond the pond. Yet POTUS style, the reptiles thrive on war - war amongst themselves, war with the ABC, war with anyone passing that looks the wrong way at them ...

Yet now Freedom Boy is proposing that it's the right of all the reptiles to live free from the pond's harassment?

What about the interminable harassment of the world by the reptiles over the matter of 18C? Yet this day, the harassment just keeps on keeping on ...

The pond just had to go to the third piece, if only to prove that it could ... but first the pond should provide a visual to illuminate the discussion ...

That can be found at the Graudian here ... along with thoughts like this ...

“The Australian newspaper, the Institute of Public Affairs and the far right of the Liberal-National party have worked themselves into a lather to defend people’s right to be racist,” Narayanasamy said. She said watering down or removing section 18C would be “outright permission” for racial abuse. “This is a country where almost a third of the population are from a non-Anglocentric background. For most Australians, there’s little demand for the right to be a bigot. “However, if you are a person of colour or one of Australia’s first peoples, this is a serious issue which impacts your quality of life.”

And while at the Graudian this header might appeal ...

Beyond 18C: six barriers to freedom of speech in Australia. Attention is focused on the Racial Discrimination Act but whistleblowers who speak out on matters of public interest face serious penalties.

Well yes, the reptiles have lathered themselves into a foaming, frothing frenzy, over an issue many people don't give a flying fuck about, since there's nothing to stop people joking about Merritt and the Meteors or Freedom Boi ...

And meanwhile, there's the issue of whistleblowers and while we're at it, the way that the rich can use defamation laws to crush reporting of their crimes ...

Have the reptiles taken up these serious matters? Not really, because all they seem to want is the right to abuse people on the basis of race, colour, ethnicity and religion ...as if the likes of the Leaker and the Bolter can't manage that on a day to day basis ...

Despite the valiant efforts of the reptiles to allow the insults to fly, is David Crowe running up the white flag?

The conservative case?

Is that some sort of distancing code, when for year after year, the pond has had to endure The Australian's case? 

The reptiles and the lizard Oz and the Bolter and the Devine and the rest of the Murdochians have been front and centre in all this, rabbiting on tediously and unendurably and now suddenly, it's "the conservative case"?

Sorry, it's the reptiles' collective case, repeated as a mantra by the hive mind, by rote, with much rhyme but little reason.

It reached such a din that it made the pond seriously think of leaving off its harassment of the reptiles because clearly they were mentally disturbed, and had become obsessively, compulsively driven by torments and phantoms ...

And now the cawing Crowe is urging his fellow reptiles to settle, and to get around behind?

Some are incredulous at the energy expended on reform options that have no chance ...?

Would that match the pond's incredulity at the way the reptiles seem to think that relentless chatter about 18C is a business model which will see their readership triple by the weekend?

Well it seems that Crowe is finally calling enough is enough, but will his reptile colleagues listen? Or will they go on yammering, tirelessly, in true Bolter style?

Will a silly pub test be the window dressing that won't satisfy any of the fundamentalists, and will provide endless more work for lawyers?

Never mind, none of it will change the pond's desire to harass, insult and offend the reptiles ... luckily, this doesn't have much to do with race, because as everyone knows, geckos have a wondrous capacity to change colours ...

And now, at least one cause for celebration. It seems that at last the Fairfaxians have fixed the gallery issue that dogged the Pope and his many splendid papal insights, and now his cartoons are presented unencumbered by gallery mechanisms ...

Give him and the Fairfaxians a click here ... there's no forced videos, just 37 papal edicts to enjoy ...