In which the pond throws hands in the air at the sight and sound and fury of another Bolter litany ...

As a late-breaking pleasure, the pond thought it might slip in a short study of the art of the reptile litany ...

There are a couple of forms of litany ... first there's the aggregation, the gaggle, the murmuration of reptiles that gather in places like the opinion pages of the Terror, the litany of litanies...

All of them most likely involve whining and moaning. 

Any number of people have noted how the Donald is a whiner (I keep whining and whining), and the reptiles are professional whiners of the first water, but few are as expert at whining, whinging, moaning and donning the sackcloth and ashes as the Bolter ...

The Bolter rarely features on the pond - the trolling is too naked and obvious, and frankly, when he gets on a roll, the trolling is too long ... more bilious than nattering "Ned" and much too vile to be easily digested.

See how the Bolter quickly saunters from Queensland to a litany of woes, an aggregation of suffering, while at the top of the column is a video of the suffering of Christians in Iraq ...

And so even before it got started on the actual domestic litany, the pond was immediately reminded of the Bolter's real form as a war monger of note - now there's a Christian deed - as recorded by Robert Manne in The Monthly here ...in particular, in relation to the suffering in Iraq ...

And so on. Others have tried to mock the Bolter and the bromancer ... as at Crikey here ...

Indeed, indeed, a Xian song by a one time born again Xian, and yet the irredeemable Bolter had his own moment of "Mission Accomplished" ...

And now he writes a piece which features a video of the suffering of Iraqi Christians at the top of the page?

This is war won  Bolter style, this is victory?

But immediately it can be seen how easily the pond can get distracted. Even before the litany began, the pond was sent haring off on a tangent.

Time to get back to that domestic litany of grievances, whining and moaning ...

Bigots? Actually the pond likes to think of the Bolter as some kind of antipodean Lord Haw Haw ...

... and a Haw Haw with a long line of woes and lamentations ...

On and on the litany runs, an endless amount of haw-hawing... and with disingenuous dissembling and fraudulent misrepresentations by the dozen ...

Did some post-ironic sub think that the best illustration for this litany was of an empty church?

To deal with this litany is impossible. The pond would be cutting and pasting forever, or writing a long screed, longer even than the insufferable Bolter's piteous screech of woe.

Take that line "With the atheism that preaches every man for himself?"

So now the GOP and Paul Ryan and the Donald and fundamentalist American Xians are atheists?

Anyone who berates the leaners and celebrates the lifters, harangues the takers and warns the givers, is an atheist?

By golly there's a lot of Xians who have suddenly switched teams then ...

It's such a stupid trolling line, just like that stupid line about the "green faith", as if a secular operation like Médecins Sans Frontières  deserves to be traduced, when it's careful to embrace religious folk who want to get involved, while also operating with a humanist rather than a religious imperative ...

MSF members and supporters may have individual religious convictions themselves but these do not drive the organisation as a whole. Rather, we at MSF have other beliefs that guide our work. A belief that everyone has the right to a doctor and to lifesaving medical care in the face of intolerable suffering. A belief that all people are equal and deserving of human dignity. In short, our creed is based on medical ethics and humanitarian law. 
The question states quite correctly that "organised religions are able to connect congregations in the developed world with their counterparts in the developing world", and certainly shared religious belief can form a bond of interest and a sense of commonality between disparate nations – not only developed to developing but across the world. 
Equally, however, we witness first hand the strife and hatred that religious divisions can foster. People fight over religion and politics – so for us to help those caught in the midst of these conflicts, where our help is needed the most, we simply cannot take sides or carry any of those labels. Separating our organisation not just from religious but also political, racial and philosophical tenets is what makes our work possible and is our passport to reaching those in greatest need – especially in warzones.

And that's really the only way to deal with a litany designed to promote division, hate, fear, loathing and all the rest of the Bolter bigotry and bile...

Slip in a plug for a charity, and finish up with a cartoon ... and remember what the minor war criminal did when it came to destroying a country, and with it, the Christian minority within it ... and then wonder why the pond spent even a nanosecond in the company of such a woeful, whining pissant ...

In which the pond spends quality time with one of its favourite reptiles, the Major Mitchell, celebrated purveyor of debased, delusional commentary ...

Now there's a digitalising flashback to the good old days of the Chairman's 'Pinky and the Brain' plans for world digital conquest ...

They were memorialised in the Sydney Morning Herald on 3rd September 1993, and a click on the image should enlarge it to readable size ... for those perverse enough to want to read it ...

Meanwhile, to keep on where the pond left off, the pond has a small, select herpetarium, and it faithfully and loyally tracks the cute cavorting of the reptiles within it ...

No doubt there are many who can't understand the pond's delight in these creatures ...

... and think the pond should argue with the fearsome-looking beasts, but who could imagine that a thorny devil could be turned into a visual delight ...

Speaking of thorny devils, the pond is aware of real world activities that have flung the reptiles into a state of national hysteria ....

Last night the pond drove through Cleveland street where one of the busts went down, but by the time the pond reached the area (the entire street had been completely shut down earlier in the day), all that remained was a solitary cop car, lights flashing, and a bit of plastic crime barrier tape flapping in the breeze ...

Sadly or luckily, some of the reptile copy this day landed before the big drama ...

But that doesn't mean these reptiles are out of touch or out of date, and the pond danced with joy at the return of another thorny devil to the pages of the lizard Oz, the perennially on song and in tune Major Mitchell. 

The Major Mitchell had gone missing for days on end,  and  the pond always gets agitated when one of its reptiles goes missing, but the Major Mitchell was in top form ...

Now this is sublimely rich stuff ... this talk of truthful reporting, coming as it does from the man who made the Order of Lenin the medal on every Australian's lips ...

Never mind, the pond's been there and done that, so it's on with today's read ...

Well it wouldn't be a Major Mitchell piece without a finger firmly inserted up fundament of self and the lizard Oz, but that's part of the ineffable charm ... and for those who wonder how the pond can conflate this bold and righteous reptile with the noble galah ...

... remember that birds and reptiles are exceedingly close in the Darwinian chain ...

But let's not argue over whether dinosaurs were handsomely dressed out in feathers, let's get on with the inflated sense of self-importance some dinosaurs notoriously reveal ...

Yes, at a time when South Australia managed to get greenie Sarah, wild card Cory, Nick X, and Jolly Jay in front of the cameras at the same time, at a time when the crow eaters are opening their windows to shout in unison that they're mad as hell ...

... that's the time that the Major Mitchell can show just how much in touch he is ...

Every time the Major Mitchell celebrates common sense, he shoots, and he scores ... after all, common sense tells the pond that cabbage, sealing wax and string would be much the cheapest way to get high speed broadband working around the country, and surely real journalists should be asking why we haven't embraced this high end solution ...

Ah, at least he no longer rails at old school blogs, with Twitter and Facebook the new enemies du jour ...

Actually there are a few questions that old school bloggers of the pond kind might be asking, like why the reptiles of Oz for a decade supported shitty copper and crappy HFC solutions and are now pretending that it's got nothing to do with them ...  and that the technical problems have got nothing to do with said shitty copper and crappy decades old, run down HFC ... 

And the pond might also be asking just how much it's going to cost, and how long it's going to take - as the disaster becomes clearer by the day - to fix up the crappy non-broadband that Malware has foisted on the nation, at the insistence of the onion muncher and with the grateful blessings of the lizards of Oz ... somehow imagining that this would stop Foxtel's goose from being cooked ...

But that's the delightful charm of the reptiles of Oz, thrashing around blindly and then wondering why everything's fucked up ...

Ah fuck it, he's such an ugly sod, such a screeching useless galah, no wonder the pond is deeply charmed, fascinated and compelled ... such a joyous mix of bigotry and bile ... still blathering on about the pub as the national centre for common sense, as opposed to the place where parrots go to get as pissed as galahs ...

And so yet again, the reptile who did so much to debase journalism in this country keeps turning up to debase the commentary pages of the lizard Oz ... and the pond resolutely refuses to utter a cruel word against this Major Mitchell ...

Now usually around this time, the pond would wrap up proceedings with a cartoon ... 

But as we're in a digital mood,  and as the AFR was mentioned in dispatches by the Major Mitchell, here's a different comedy item,  which in the last few days has sent the actual geeks who actually built the full to overflowing intertubes in Australia into something of a frenzy ...

Justin Milne the father of broadband in Australia?

So that's why it's comprehensively fucked?!

Well done Max Mason, that's the best joke the pond has come across in recent times, even better than anything the Major Mitchell could  scribble...

Actually to be fair, it was Ziggy that produced the original joke ...

Um, that little "mini mid-life crisis"? Milne's company went broke ... and as for the rest? Well some of the geeks have been noting certain resemblances to certain sitcoms ...

In which the pond shares another Oreo, and sees no future or hope in attempting to reform the reptiles ...

Oh please miss, please miss, oh please, puh-lease miss, please pick me, pick me ...

Pick the pond ... you see, not so long ago, the pond discovered people rolling out brand new ancient thirty year old technology of the HFC kind in the neighbourhood, no doubt in due course ready to hook up with Queen Victoria's copper to deliver a splendid new age of intertubes connectivity ... so that all the HFC people can fuck each other up, and the speed slows and the complaints swell to a shrill chorus ...

Ah, it's as if rolling out pay TV was only yesterday ...

And so to an apology and an explanation.

Many years ago, the pond used to argue with the reptiles, copy down their points and rebut them, point out the errors in their ways, and suggest, in a polite way, the many alternative understandings of the world that they might consider adopting ...

It was useless, worse than futile. A bit like expecting the seventy year old Donald to change. He's a deeply corrupt businessman, accustomed to bankruptcy and to stiffing creditors and sundry wives, and he's never going to change.

It's like arguing with fundamentalist religious kooks. No matter what you say, they'll keep believing. If Malcolm Roberts believes he's not British with all his heart, that's his reality. And it works with climate science too ...

So it is with the reptiles. They operate at such a deep paranoid level of conviction that to expect them to engage in sensible discussion involves a level of optimism that's way beyond the pond's experience. 

They're driven by personal demons and mad, compulsive, irrational faith, or, at the basic level of the ordinary reptile grunt, by a pay cheque from the chairman to drink the kool aid and sing the corporate song.

There's nothing in the business model of a Bolter which would recommend moderation and sensible discussion. His entire persona and public presence depends on a rarely repressed, completely irrational hysteria ...and so it is with the other reptiles who grace the pond's pages.

It's a bit like the pet python that used to be in the family. Set it loose from its hot rock and it would blindly blunder over the mantelpiece, knocking things helter skelter, and roam around leaving its waste and its smell everywhere (not the smooth dry sinewy snake skin, lovely to touch, but the vague smell of snake that the waste evoked). 

It was in its nature, and no matter how reproving and reprimanding the snake's owner might be, the reptile never listened ... and if the mantelpiece was cleared of things it might destroy, it would find fresh ingenious ways to wreak havoc and and destruction. Oh look, there's a hi fi system ...

So it is with the reptiles of Oz. Feed them a dead rat of the kind they love, and watch the jaws distend, and gaze in fascinated awe as the reptiles do their thing ... but don't expect them to change their ways.

Speaking of dead rats, this day was typical ... look at the way reptile DD was given a special treat, and away he munched, contented in his work ...

How they yearn, how they hate the ABC, how bizarre that they see this as the only way to fix their business model and keep the dead rats coming.

And did the recent heat produce anything other than a tepid note that it's been pleasantly warm?

Of course not. The reptiles love their hot rock and their merry Xmas in July, so all is well, because isn't winter warmth just as good as a Santa wonderland ... (sssh, that person who mentioned climate change, go to the back of the room and put on the dunce cap).

Now occasionally the senior reptiles do try to look balanced, as a way of seeming to be cute and appealing to those in search of non-alternative facts...

You see, this day, to balance the Oreo, there's a vow to vote on gay vows, and elsewhere in the digital edition, to balance the Oreo on the UN,  there's talk of the criminal Brexit shambles ...

... perhaps in the hope that we'd forget that for months the Oreo raged about the importance of Brexit ...just as we'll no doubt be asked in due course to forget how she loves the Donald so ...as the reptiles begin to run stories along the lines 'Republican White House shambles criminal' ...

But in the end, the reptiles want the Oreo to howl at the moon in the usual barking mad way. It's an essential part of the business model ...

It's the mother of all lies, because of course the reptiles rely heavily on 'facts' that are so alternative, so weird, so out there, that the use of 'fact' is deeply post-modernist and post-ironic ...

And it regularly produces even more irony ...

Okay, the first google listing is for the Oreo seven or so hours ago, and below it is another tirade, a hearty rant about the UN, which first popped up way back in January at the start of the year ...

Of course, of course ...

It's another reminded that the Oreo - as well as being a biscuit of little brain - can only produce so many variants, and frequently returns to the same dead rat to give it a good worrying. It's rather - to mix the metaphors - like the fox terrier that was once in the family that would take the dead rat out the back and bury it in the Tamworth sun, then every so often, return to drag the rat back out and gnaw away at it ...

Come on dead rat UN, it's time for that first gnawing ...

And that's probably been the longest introduction the pond has ever done to the latest Oreo, as she returns once more to savage her favourite dead UN rat ...

Now some will want to argue with the Oreo, but just watching the Oreo gnaw away is enough for the pond.

The sheer delight, the sheer fun of watching the Oreo have at the rat is enough. There's no point in arguing, there's no point in discussing ...

The pond might just add a footnote at the splendid irony in the Oreo fancying that she's remotely liberal ... but that's as far as it goes ...

You note the cleverness of the Oreo? The wicked UN dared to suggest that the Donald might be a worry, but he's determined to build walls and stop travel so that free societies might be free ... to live behind a wall ...

And so on and so forth. It's incredibly cute, a rich mixture of lemon tartiness and creaminess of the kind the pond commends to others every Monday ...

This is what Australian universities have conspired to produce ... the smartest of the smart, the best rat catchers in the world ...

Others might suggest that while the UN is deeply flawed it is perhaps good for countries to get together and have a chin wag, rather than deploy the nukes.

If the UN wasn't around, surely an alternative would have to be invented, and likely enough it would be riven by the same sort of compromises and wobbly structures designed to pander to powerful interests of the nuke-wielding kind ...

The League of Nations went nowhere, and the second world war erupted ... and the pond suspects that a similar result with the UN would deeply please the Oreo...

The Oreo doesn't seem much interested in sane international relations ... She likes to feud and fight and fuss in a deeply illiberal way ...

Like most of the rat-gnawing reptiles, the Oreo has a bee in her bonnet - actually it's more like a beehive and a swarm of bees - and by golly, she's going to buzz at some fair length ...

Actually the pond doesn't need to do anything. 

The pond doesn't need to acknowledge anything, and the pond especially doesn't have to argue with the Oreo, though the pond is freely willing to acknowledge that there's something deeply rotten and weird in the state of the Oreo's brain. 

But that's as far as the pond might go. It happens to have reptile watching as a personal hobby, and the more threatening the reptiles are, the more weird and barking mad, the more poisonous they are, the more the pond thrills to and marvels at the weirdness and the danger ...

D. H. Lawrence caught the ambivalence in his poem to a snake, which can be found in full here ... for in Australia, the reptile of Oz is of the venomous kind ...

And so on and so forth, and so on to comrade Bill up in a tree, as a HFC copper-loving toffy sheriff rides by in an open carriage, with more Robin Rowe of the AFR here ...

In which, thanks to the Terror, Akker Dakker delivers the pond's daily diet of bigotry and bile ...

Strange, the pond went looking for Miranda the Devine this day in the Sunday Terror and she wasn't there ... had she been taken in ...

Luckily, Akker Dakker was on hand to give the pond its daily dose of ignorance and bile, and the fat owl of the remove was in fine form ... there must have been a generous serve of doughnuts in the tuckshop ...

Aah, it's the mating cry of the fascist angry white male shouting at clouds in a bigoted way ...

Naturally the pond went searching for suitable illustrations for the Akker Dakker piece, and it came across this one ...

Never mind that they don't seem to know how to spell "fucking English" - since when did "#" creep into a decent fucking? - the pond found that image on this message board ...

That seemed about the right turf for Akker Dakker and the Terrorists, and then the pond found the T-shirt handsomely modelled, by someone of Akker Dakker's portly size ...

There was something about that tilt of the head that was eerily familiar ...

Thus refreshed and restored, the pond returned for another dose of Akker Dakker bigotry and bile ... only to be disappointed by the lack of imagination in the illustration ...

Surely the Terrorists could have come up with better illustrations ... say a portrait of some sympathetic followers of the Akker Dakker line ...

But no, they much prefer the usual demonic images of threatening Islamics, threatening to tear down the very fabric of Australian society, so precarious and fragile it is ...

Ah homosexuals. It always produces a mirthless smile in the pond, to read of Akker Dakker's sudden discovery of his concern for teh gays ...

It doesn't take much googling to discover Akker Dakker's love of the gays, up there with Daesh and fundamentalist Islamic bigots ...

Take this effort back in 2010, now given the retrospective Terrorist formatting beloved of site 'fixes' ...

Somehow that relentless unbroken presentation suits the Akker Dakker rant, the tirade, the hate, worthy of Daesh ... and it was wrong of the pond to interrupt, because the fear and loathing is strong in this one ...

There's many a fundamentalist Islamic who would have applauded that Akker Dakker effort, and there are many more Akker Dakker rants like them, easy enough to be found, and just as bigoted and bile-laden ...

Reading it, the pond felt a cheery greeting rising from the keyboard along the lines... 

...if you don't like working in Surry Hills, surrounded by gay people, why don't you just get the fuck up and leave ... and don't stop at Woop Woop, keep on heading to Malaysia or Singapore or Indonesia, where they share your thoughts on homosexuality and gay marriage ...

It's not as if you don't know the countries, though the pond understands that white powder can be expensive and the tuckshops don't carry decent doughnuts ...

Yes, we've been here so many tedious times before, but the pond can't recall running this old First Dog ... with more First Dog here ...

Oh there's comedy everywhere for this one ...