In which the lizard wars continue on many fronts ...

The reptiles of Oz war against climate science bubbled along nicely this day ... but yesterday the reptiles didn't forget their traditional forms of warfare ...

Crikey produced its promised piece on the war against Paul Barry, found here, and beginning ...

Naturally the reptiles couldn't resist a pre-emptive prod and a poke ...

But the reptiles are canny ... they didn't want it to seem too direct, too blatant, too obvious, and so led with an obvious alternative bit of spiteful gossip, that being a skill relished by the reptiles in adder mood ...

You see ... the caring crocodile sheds a tear ... while over at Crikey they kept on carrying on recording aspects of the war ...

And so to the latest crime discovered by the reptiles ... owning paper shares of a singularly worthless kind ...

It's a lazy, disingenuous jab, full of sly innuendo and feral ratbaggery, dressed up as jovial joking of the "running a series that favours a shareholder and attacks a competitor" kind ... but it's not the pond's business as to how Stephen Brook looks in a mirror in the morning without shattering it, because this was all a minor distraction, as today the pond was drawn away from the war to attend to its usual traditional spectre, the Caterist at the top of the opinion page...

Say what? Beneath the usual Caterist offering, Lenin's shadow looms over all of us?

Actually if the pond might be so bold, there's another shadow looming over us all ...

Never mind, the pond would do anything to be distracted from the Caterists, and brooding about the filthy Commies and dirty Lenin and wretched Marx is such an honoured and ancient Murdochian pastime, the pond jumped right in ...

Surely there's something weird about all this?

Could the weirdness have something to do with the way that friendly breakfast Foxes and Hannity and the rest of the Murdochian Fox tribe paved the way for a businessman with deep financial and business ties to Russia to waltz into the White House and seize the opportunity to create mayhem? 

Poor old Troy is still back in 1917 and the game has long moved on ...

Those stories are all the go and easily googled, but in summary, it's yes, we' re all the way with the Ruskis, thanks in no small part to the Chairman and his currying of favour with the Donald ...

But no doubt the pond is misjudging Troy, no doubt Troy will get on to all the Murdoch-inspired Ruski madness in his next bout of brooding ...

It was around the point that Troy mentioned corruption and brutality, and "uses propaganda to articulate a nationalist vision" that the pond realised Troy had been forced to type in code ...

He wanted to talk about the modern situation, but he couldn't, he was deeply constrained. He had to drop desperate hints of the "Sound familiar?" kind ... and talk of cheap populism and make sure that reference to populists on the left was balanced by mention  of populists on the right and then he could slip in "He told crowds they were being ignored, left behind and had no stake in their country's future."

Sound familiar?

Surely does ... it sounds like a slogan developed after watching a little too much Foxy television ...

What a pity that Troy couldn't get all the dots ...

"Indeed, there is much in Lenin that can be found in Putin and much in Putin that can be found in the Donald and much in the Donald that can be found in the Chairman ..."

And now for a few more Lenin and Fox-friendly cartoons ...