In which the pond continues its epic coverage of the reptile coverage of the civil war ...

The civil war is beginning to heat up, and it's going to be beyond the pond's resources to keep track of all the reptiles, in the same way that the many battles in the American Civil War have occupied historians for centuries ...

But let us begin with the reptile news of the day at the lizard Oz, which had at the top of its tree killer edition the promise of Malware running dead, and tantalising, tempting promises of a treat-laden dose of nattering "Ned" ...

Speaking of running dead, it seems right to begin proceedings by referencing John Hewson on the subject of Malware, the cowardly dog determined to lie doggo ...

Pure comedy, and more at Fairfax of Hewson begging Malware to lead the liberals, that notion of Malware leading, when the news comes today, if the reptiles are to be trusted, that he and his team intend to lie doggo, doing dead dog imitations in the ditch, for the entire three months of the civil war ... as if Malware was hoping to find a spot for himself in listicles dedicated to the Top 10 Worst American Civil War Generals ...

But first a quick pivot. 

The pond is above all, dedicated to the stupid, and of all the stupid this day, none can match the pure distilled essence of BO stupidity. and so with a leap and a bound, BO has jumped to the top of the pond page ...

Now at first blush, and in the typically deceiving way of Oz subs doing splashes, this might seem like a bold denunciation of marriage in general and its petit bourgeois ways, and the supreme uselessness of suburban lives dedicated to Victa mowers, Hills' hoists, and grunt cars manufactured anywhere except Australia ...

But lead line is a misleading lie - it isn't about marriage in general - and the stupid Pom is banging on about something entirely different, as the google splash more honestly reveals ...

Yes, it's not about the way marriage is a nanny state safety net, it's about the way SSM is uniquely a nanny state safety net ...

Now it's true that BO is reliably stupid, and therefore a lay-down misere for the pond, and really should be beneath the pond's dignity - the sort of stocking filler that no-one should put at the bottom of a child's stocking ...but if a site is dedicated to the loon, how can it turn away a visiting loon on the basis that he's the looniest of the day?

The trouble of course, is that BO is such a fuckwit gadfly that he infallibly, unfailingly refuses to recognise the contortions and distortions produced by his eternal desire to be perverse, to sail against the wind, to be contrarian ...

And yet, there he is, in his fundamental essence of stupidity, ending up with blather about the nanny state, and sounding just like Tony Abbott railing at political correctness ...

Okay, the pond hasn't bothered to comment, because idiocy is its own commentary, and how much braver it would have been if BO had dared to end "If you're interested in liberation, you really should be sceptical about marriage." 

But because he's a eunuch in the brothel of bad ideas, he doesn't have the balls to go there ... and so resorts to simple-minded chanting in the church of the nanny state about teh gays.

Besides, there is much to cover this day, not least because nattering "Ned" was also front and centre ... and if there's one thing certain, "Ned" won't shut up for hours, and long after the wedding guests have left the party, good old "Ned" will still be jabbing his finger and blathering on ...

Now anyone who has travelled this far has been warned, and if they decide to travel on, be aware that the pond has done a Pontius and called for bowl of water and soap (and towel too you bloody useless waiter).

Unlike BO, nattering "Ned's" job is to cultivate saucy doubts and fears, and to do this will involve many pivotal problems and much pivoting, if only so that eventually the weary traveller might be taken back to the sheltering embrace of the onion muncher ... because the onion muncher is oh so very right ...

Far-reaching significance? Well of course that's the business of dissembling disingenuous panic merchants and fear mongers, eager to raise the anxiety level ...

Elsewhere it might be possible to read this sort of thing, as at Fairfax here ...

Well yes, the sky didn't fall down on top of Ireland or Spain or Canada, but "Ned" is too busy to notice as he pivots to his "core point":

Indeed, indeed. In the interests of balance, it might have been noted that in certain sections of the community, a deep hatred expressed for people of homosexual orientation has endured for a couple of thousand years, thanks to the homophobic bigotry of assorted camel and goat herders, allowing for the way that the idea of homosexuality wasn't articulated until much later ...

But "Ned" isn't interested in balance, he's after those saucy doubts and fears, no doubt accompanied by much hand-wringing to conjure up deep anxieties ...

Now note well how this sort of conflation works, how we might gaily leap from gay marriage to talk of a university requiring its students to abstain from sex unless said sex is between a husband and a wife ...

Imagine the fuss if Chairman Rupert made it a condition of employment that sex between reptiles was forbidden, unless they happened to be husband and wife ...

But that's the way it goes with fundamentalist bigots of the nattering "Ned" kind, always willing to celebrate fundamentalist persecution, and not giving a flying fuck about the way that fundamentalists and cultists routinely persecute their members and the vulnerable in their midst, and have done so for centuries, with gays and women much favoured as targets...

In short, for all his ponderous pomposity, nattering "Ned", now deep in the grip of senility as he endlessly recites the usual litany of conservative Christian suffering and persecution, is in his own way as stupid as BO ... and an eminently pompous worthy who is worth his place on the pond ...

Oh fuck, and so human rights, which is to say the right to be human, are to be thrown under the bus because somehow ... they're a part of a "progressive ideology" designed to drive religion from the public square.

News flash, in a secular society, religion ostensibly has no place in the public square, and that's long been the case, given the way that church and state are meant to be separate, and even the average Xian recognises that which belongs to Caesar isn't a complimentary woman for an angry Sydney Anglican ... or a child available for Catholic molestation.

Now anyone who reached this point can enjoy a consoling Rowe cartoon, with more Rowe here, and take an early mark, because such bravery is its own reward ...

For the ultra-marathoners, the pond would also like to look at the news of the day at the lizard Oz ...

Now the pond is only doing this because of its ultimate perversity and desire to dish out punishment and do one of its notorious montages, beginning with another sample of John Hewson ... (follow the link above for a little more context):

Well yes, and so back to the news from the reptiles of Oz ...

Well yes, and at this point the pond would like to introduce a new voice, one full of rage at Malware as a perfidious fizza and dropkick loser...

Now being a montage, the pond must perforce cut back to the baby's pram rolling heedlessly down the steps, the baby trapped helplessly inside ...

Uh huh, perhaps Jack has something to say to Malware to help the montage work and make the audience fear for the baby and the bathwater, let alone the pram still bouncing down those steps...

By golly, Jack seems decidedly unhappy, but in the manner of Eisenstein, or Brian de Palma shamelessly ripping him off for The Untouchables, the pond must now cut back to a few more bumps on the steps ... as the fizza's gutless wonders head for the hills ...

In short, if the reptiles are to be trusted, Malware's mob will run as dead as dogs in the ditch, and thereby contribute to the poll being either a failure, or so close it will be hotly contested and deemed a failure ...

Is Jack happy?

Well the pond leaves it to others as to what they might do and how they might respond to the postal ballots should they ever drop in the letter box and aren't stolen or otherwise interfered with. 

There are reasons for joining Jack, but then Kirby himself had a change of heart, realising perhaps that voting "no" might result in the issue joining Malware's republic at the bottom of the heap of fucked up issues he's fucked over in the last few decades (no, the pond won't cave in and mention the multi-nodal copper HFC NBN).

The republic now languishes like rusted copper on the rubbish heap of life, and it could well be that SSM might end up in the same dump ...

And that leaves just one last gobbet to go ...

What an enormous impending train wreck, what a fuck-up, what a fizza Malware is ... but never fear, anyone who's made it this far can take home a free poster of the movie ... whichever version you like ... though in either case, the Malware montage has put babies and men and women and their rights in peril ...