In which the pond tries to keep up with reptile affairs, and somehow ends up in a crusade with the angry Sydney Anglicans ...

It's impossible for the pond to keep up with the many disgraceful ways the reptiles disgrace themselves, as in this contemptible example by the contemptible Carolin Overington, and noted in the Graudian as Attack on union leader Sally McManus by the Australian newspaper backfires ...

Contemptible in a risible way, of course, with the reptiles seemingly incapable of understanding the difference between an SRC and an SU on campus ...

Then there was Jolly Joe Hockey landing back in town, seemingly intent on replacing Chris Christie in the Trump administration, and Mark Latham being sacked by Sky - what will the Terrorists do now? - and this wondrous headline by the reptiles ...

Limited victory? So that's what you scribble when writing about Dunkirk? Or the fall of Singapore?

Limited victory indeed... but trust the reptiles to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory ...

And then on a related matter last night, the pond switched from listening to an informative yarn about the economics of the orchestra (here) - well the pond was on the road so relapsed into an RN state - to catching the opening on 'their ABC' of The Drum, to hear Chris Berg introduced as an RMIT prof ...

Say what? 

They went on to talk about trigger alerts, but the pond has no time for this sort of modern young people claptrap. 

If they don't want to hear about what went on at Dunkirk or in prison camps after the fall of Singapore, or the tragedy of the reptiles' limited dark victory, they can just bugger off. But then the pond itself lapsed into a coma, a victim of a failure to deliver a trigger alert about Berg turning prof ...

Yes, it was both a flashback and a triggered nightmare, found at Crikey here from the 20th Feb 2017, and the pond only now catching up with the news ...

Luckily the pond's reptile training kicked in. There's simply not enough time to listen to the blathering of ivory tower profs sucking on the teat of the taxpayer, and spreading alarmist claptrap about climate, and so the pond switched off, knowing that the morning would bring news of the latest big reptile event designed to produce a condition of toxic shock ...

Yes, young 'uns, gather around. We're in a state of war, there's a crusade going down, there will be much blood, but with a bit of luck, the Xians can be saved, and the poofters put to the sword for their filthy, vile, abominable ways ...

Oh sorry, did you want a trigger alert? 

Didn't you see the bleeding obvious in both the tree killer edition and then re-dressed to provide a little image filler in the digital edition?

But how do we know for certain that the reptiles are in crusading Xian mode?

Well first of all, there's the prominence of the positioning - look ma, top of the page ma - and the stories are starting to come thick and fast ...

Oh yes, it's a slam here and a slam there ...

Then there's what the pond fancies might be called the Pravda treatment.

The prominent guest, the Xian dignitary, is invited to write a column, and then a little Ms Echo is selected from the rabble of kool aid drinkers, to write it up and cluck-cluck and tut-tut about the wickedness of the enemy and the importance of the crusade.

It also helps to have a prominent photo of said dignitary looking very dignified, and smiling in a simpering, pleasant, Xian way that is considered pleasing to women baking the scones for the church do, in their complimentary way ...

This part of the crusade fell to a gormless young thing, one Simone Fox Koob, who failed to provide the pond with a trigger alert ...

It's a bit like 18C, and the way the reptiles somehow feel limited in their right to hurl abuse at the world. 

Would it be possible to imagine someone more repressed, more silenced, more shoved to the back aisle than the leader of the angry Sydney Anglicans, as Koob faithfully transcribed Davies' deepest thoughts, given prominence on the tree killer front page, and splashed all over the digital edition, with bonus examples of shocking, offensive, hurtful gay behaviour?

Well it's a fine academic point - the pond isn't that keen on the notion of being hurled off a tall building - but who could argue with the quite reasonable statement that the angry Sydney Anglicans are barbaric Xians?

Trigger alert ... 

Talk of barbaric Xians was enough to induce a fainting fit in the reptiles  and to make them forget all about their fine and righteous talk of 18C and free speech... 

Apparently, it's possible to get an attack of the vapours just reading a tweet if you're a sensitive reptile...

For fuck's sake, has Davies forgotten that his bible and his church routinely consign gays to eternal hellfire and damnation for their wickedness.

And now he gets all marshmallow soft about a few words said in retaliation? He's all bolshie about a cancelled booking, while offering gays a booking in hell for eternity?

Hmm, they seem pretty buxom and cut, those thieves and more pics here ...

But back to the Pravda hagiographic treatment.

You see, once the crusaders have run the "news" story - "news" of a crusade the reptiles are conducting - space has to be made for the actual column that provided the spark for the "news" report ...

Indeed, indeed, but don't expect the reptiles to be running a story anytime soon with the header "Beware angry Sydney Anglican bullies pushing uniformity and monotonous sameness of a fundamentalist Xian kind..."

Not to worry, the pond will now regurgitate the column, though after the news report, it has nothing new to say ...

But the pond must replicate the reptile business model as best it can, and watch its readership drop like flies, fall away, and go and do something more interesting than watch the latest antics of the deluded crusaders ...

Perhaps that giant phallus, that elaborate prong at the head of the row boat, will spark some sort of amusement ... at the gigantic thrusting hypocrisy of a pack of reptile pricks ...

Oh go suck on a Freud, or the gigantic prong of a boat, or a cock, you gormless twit ...

Around this point, the pond started to drift off into memories of things that had once amused, crusaders who once had a comic appeal ...

But no, there was more to go, more whining and moaning and claiming of harassment ...

True freedom is only to be found in Jesus Christ? What, and a bonus offer of a lifetime in hell?

Hmm, pretty cut all the same, but please, go take a flying rhetorical fuck ...

In the meantime,  please keep at it. The more you and the reptiles crusade, and harp on, and carry on with nonsense, the more the reptiles shoot their business plan in the foot ...

Yes, there's always an upside, and no need to provide a trigger alert for a little harmless foot-shooting ...

Meanwhile, speaking of business plans, David Rowe offered this splendid example of a limited victory ... with more Rowe here ...