In which the pond seeks protection from endless reptile protectionism ...

If the reptiles keep going with their desire to turn the lizard Oz into a fortress in the style of The Times, and take themselves completely out of the conversation, the pond might be spending more time with lesser lights of the Rachel Baxendale kind ...

But that too has its rewards, and possibly not before time.

Who knew that a wine science student would end up pounding the fundamental Xian beat for the lizard Oz?

There's a million stories in the naked, or even the clothed city, and setting up an entirely new RELIGIOUS PROTECTIONS category in the lizard Oz alleged news section is exemplary ...

Why even in the olden golden days, the reptiles never quite managed an ABANDON 18C FOR THE SAKE OF THE BOLTER category in the news section ...

Yesterday Rach lent her ear to the copious squawkings of the mysterious Lyle bird, a bold and brazen creature with not a shy feather to be found ...

Channelling the Lyle bird and typing down Cory talking about 'common sense' is as good a definition of silliness as can be imagined, and the pond feels a deep sense of pity for this Rach, trying her best to make a living in this difficult world.

Someone has to do it, but not everyone was buying the hysteria, with Ernie popping up in the comments section ...

Remarkably it seems some willingly pay for the pleasure of trolling the fundies who litter the comments section of the lizard Oz, but if the reptiles take themselves out of the conversation, will they end up only braying to their base like a bunch of Donalds?

Pandering to the Lyle bird doesn't seem like much of a business model, though the pond learned a new word for the day ...

It had thought totalism was a style of art music that turned up in the 1980s ... so little the pond knew ...

Et tu Erica? That only seemed to make Trev a little madder ...

Meanwhile, Rach was trying to produce balanced coverage by trotting out comrade Bill down the bottom of her piece ... by golly RELIGIOUS PROTECTIONS must now be more important than 18C ...

It's funny to think that earlier this day, there was the Savva assuring the pond and the world that the hugely expensive postal survey was a very good thing, because it reassured us that the moderate centre tolerant middle class still existed and had expressed a view and the Liberals would take care of it, when all that's happened is that the fundamentalists and the homophobic bigots have found a new way forward, which we might call RELIGIOUS PROTECTIONS ... and which now can keep the reptiles fully occupied, at least until the WAR ON XMAS calls ...

Truth to tell, they'll never give up on the culture wars, which carried on at full steam in the comments section ...

Somehow that reminded the pond of a Golding cartoon ...

The pond isn't so sure about that ... apparently there are no gay farmers in Australia, in much the same way as there are no gay footballers in the AFL ... and certainly not any gays in the Catholic church, except for the gay priest in the pond's extended family ....

Meanwhile, poor old Rach now had to pay attention to the Mayor of Hornsby, a desiccated hornblower of the old school ...who will certainly manage to reduce the discussion to outright tedium and dire ennui ...

Somehow the pond ended up brooding about luddites and medievalism and wondering if the reptiles in their new google fortress world might at last be offering the pond release, or at the very least, enlightenment ...

The pond has been thinking in recent times how tedious and stale it is to keep tracking the reptiles and their obsessions.

Instead of a herpetarium, why not an aquarium stocked with clown fish? Can looking at Nemo be that bad as a hobby? Perhaps it's time to shake up the business model, get out and about, avoid all the usual reptile offerings ...

You see, following on from Rach, the reptiles were at it again today with an EXCLUSIVE ...

What a shining example 'Becca is to Rach, good biblical names and all ... (Rachel, it will be recalled, was the favourite of a Biblical patriarch, while Rebekah was involved in all sorts of complicated business ... the pond only mentions this because every day it seems it's back in Sunday school fearing homosexuals and deviant socialists and anyone not in the DLP) ...

And sure enough dashing Donners was on to it like a flash ...

And at this point the pond had to make a pre-emptive strike, recycling that old joke Woody joke about the way that the intellectual content in the lizard Oz was served up pretty weak ... and in such small portions too ...

In the current climate referencing Allen isn't good for the health, in much the same way that dashing Donners isn't good for fundie Xian paranoia ...

That's it? That's the best Donners has got this day? And the reptiles pay him for it?98

Fucketty fuck, speaking of Dumbing Down, does anyone believe, outside dashing Donners, that calling Victoria the Albania of the South is the way to win an argument?

Hysteria, moi?

We're now expected to believe that Donners is living and working at the Education Standards Institute in Tirana, Albania, otherwise quaintly known as Melbourne, capital of Victoria?

Of course Donners use of the word "institute" has copped a bit of ire  when actually ESI is a trading name for Impetus Consultants Pty Ltd, ABN 73 737 609 643.

Hmm, is it time to set up the Loon Pond Institute for Reprehensible Word Abuse?

Never mind, there's always a place for Donners, because he manages to troll almost everybody, as when he got Guy Rundle going some months ago at Crikey ...

Well yes indeed, careful what you wish for rhetorical Donners, and speaking of multiculturalism, the real Pope had a splendid idea this day for a diverse workplace, with more genuine papal encyclicals to be found here ...