In which the pond tries really hard to give up its Terrorist reptile addiction ...but how, when they're all as cute as a death adder ...

Eek, and the pond thought it was the Islamics ...

But trust the Terror, always on the case, and always willing to put out ...splash the cash and they're yours, and no less entrepreneurial than the pimp that parks his Porsche outside the brothel in Enmore Road ...

All the same, the pond feels that it's been overdoing the reptiles, and especially on a Sunday. The Sunday Terror is laden with Terrorist reptile pleasures, but they should be enjoyed in moderation, and perhaps the pond should cut back ...

Oh but they're all so adorable and cute and cuddly, in their spiky, moody, aggressive, bitey and snappy way, and it's so hard to choose and to pick favourites ...

Look at the array this day ... if you can get past the new toilet-clean look of the layout ...

Clearly the pond couldn't do without a splash of the Devine ... and to omit Akker Dakker would be a mortal crime, but what about the rest?

Who'd written about energy, and what was the boob job?

The pond had to plunge inside to discover the full tasty array, like an NT croc on a barbie ...

What a relief ...

The pond could give up on boobs for starters.

Anyone who relies on boobs is back with Aggy Read and The Fugs and Boobs a Lot, and now Aggy's somewhere off playing croquet in the sky with the fairies at the bottom of the garden...

And the pond could give up the Devine calling bullshit on Bill Shorten, because there's certainly been no bullshit about Barners the closet Kiwi ... the man who ruined Tamworth's reputation for being the only place to be dinkum about sheep ...

And that would leave just a small dip in the Devine pool of hate and fear and loathing, perhaps with a bonus slippery slope ... but at least it would involve the Islamics who are coming, and who should be damned when they do, and when they don't, and anywhere in between ...

Indeed, indeed, and what a missed opportunity, what a chance lost, to explain that the fundamentalist homophobic bigotry to be found in the Catholic Devine might also be found in the fundamentalist homophobic bigotry preached by some followers of the Islamic religion. Curiously it happens to tie in with the thoughts of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and nationalists and that original inspiration, the advanced thinking present in Germany in the 1930s. What a happy band of brothers and sisters...

How could these natural allies have been torn apart? How could conservatives of the Devine kind fail to recognise the natural affinity between their views and those of Daesh?

Why even now somewhere in the world there's probably a Daesh theorist working up a clever parable about the danger of the slippery slope, the domino theory having already proven such a stunning success in 'Nam, and there being no gays in the Caliphate, just as apparently there are none in Chechnya, or at least not for want of trying ...

That's it? That's the Devine for the day?

Oh the pond feels positively slim and chipper. What a diet, it makes the pond feel like a special person. Splash on a little of the patented vitriole ...

... and it's on to the next reptile ...

But should the pond indulge in its usual comparison of Akker Dakker with the fat owl of the remove?

Why not, where's the harm, especially as the fat owl himself begins with the drunk driver introducing another slippery slope specialist ...

When it comes to teh gaze, Akker Dakker isn't going to settle for Devine brevity.

His homophobia runs deep and wide and wild, and why not, they're all a bunch of Marxists, because there's nothing more wild-eyed Marxist, revolutionary and anarchist, than settling down with a single companion, and leading a dull bourgeois life of domestic wedded bliss ...

Phew. There goes the pond's attempt to spend less time with the reptiles. What a whiny, needy, emotionally greedy and desperate reptile this Akker Dakker is ...

Can you just feel him licking his licks as he types out the words "the antics of bare-buttocked young males cavorting in bondage apparel ..."

Not to mention his valiant support of nuns dressed in drag ... 

What next? A defence of the burqa? Might it not be hurtful for the cultists to see images and hear Akker Dakker scribble furiously words designed to humiliate and denigrate them? How many ways to count an attack of the vapours?

Gad sir, do you realise those bare-buttocked young males in their bondage gear are being marketed as family entertainment? While poor old victimised Akker Dakker must suffer in silence ...

Gad sir, it's simply too much for a pompous old fart to bear ... so please do let the pompous bigoted old fart carry on endlessly ...

Indeed, indeed. No wonder even his fellow repitles keep Akker Dakker off in a special enclosure ... 

And that surely should be it, surely the pond has had enough of the reptiles this day?

What, you mean give up on petulant Peta?

But the pond had a joke ready for her coming ...

Another huge win for Australian Post, as if the very expensive and totally useless voluntary survey on SSM hadn't been big enough ...

But even better, petulant Peta is on hand to advise both Miranda the Devine and the fat owl of the remove that they've been wasting their time.

It turns out that gay marriage isn't the biggest issue facing the country ....

Now please don't get petulant Peta wrong.

Sure her fellow reptiles have entirely missed the point, but petulant Peta cares as much about reducing emissions as the next person, provided it can be done without any additional expense, or by abandoning coal, or by getting into all that new-fangled renewable energy ...

If emissions can be reduced by magic, that's great, and if they can't it's a never no mind, provided not a hair on the head of coal is harmed. Let the market decide? Nonsense, this is a case for Malware and big government ...

Sure Peta cares about climate science and the changing climate, provided that coal can stay front and centre, and we won't have trendies and dangerous elites talking of renewable energy ...

And whatever you do, don't you get worried about what retailers of electricity do for the money they hive off. Why retailing electricity is a singularly difficult and tricky job, and worth every cent we pay, because there are so many different forms and varieties of electricity to be marketed ... in much the same way that no doubt privatised sewerage will be needed to cope with an infinity variety of shit ...

No, please, none of that, let us instead talk - to show our regard for science - of the green religion, because as always you might see science, but petulant Peta sees religion ...

It's extraordinarily unfair of petulant Peta to try to steal the pond's business and mock Malware, and even more unfortunate for Peta not to recognise where many of Malware's most doofus policy ploys have come from ...

But at least First Dog acknowledged the man who provided the inspiration and the perspiration required for fucking up the NBN and climate science, a man always willing to talk of the greenie religion and clean coal ...

(The full First Dog and others can be found here).

It's always fun to take a break from the reptiles because returning to them after the break just doubles the pleasure.

Now please don't get petulant Peta wrong. Sure her fellow reptiles have entirely missed the point, but petulant Peta cares as much about reducing emissions as the next person, provided it can be done without any additional expense, or by abandoning coal, or by getting into all that new-fangled renewable energy ...

Sure Peta cares about climate science and the changing climate, provided that coal can stay front and centre, and we won't have trendies and dangerous elites talking of renewable energy ...

Oh did that sound a tad repetitious, to the point of tedious monotony? Welcome to the world, and the delights of reptile observation.

Let's face it, clean coal is all the go, and the certain way forward for a clean future. Why Peta read about it in the lizard Oz and so it must be true, and the alternative - without any fear of exaggeration or a hint of hysteria - is that we head back to the Stone Age, and cavort around like badly dressed apes in a Kubrick movie ... or even worse get a job as an extra in that apes franchise ...

Yes, it's clean coal all the way, and some of the brightest minds of a generation - like Karl - agree, not to mention Tim Nicholls, one of the giant minds at work in the cause of clean coal technology ...

Surprisingly, having done such a spiffing job with the NBN, Malware doesn't seem to have caught up with clean coal ... when everyone knows that coal is the answer, coal is the future, dinkum Aussie coal oi oi oi ...

Lights out, gone before Xmas ... Malware the dud.

And indeed the pond can think of only two bigger duds in recent political history ...

... blessed with their own religion, a charitable love for the discarded up there with Christ's talk of the good Samaritan ...

And now, having kept its reptile addiction in check, the pond is ready for the good news, because at last the statue crisis has been resolved, thanks to Pryor, and the pond should note that those who value his insights should make The Saturday Paper here a priority ...