In which the pond feels abandoned, and has to field a second-rate team of reptiles ...

 

It was like one of those nightmares where you discover you're naked at a party. With the hole in the bucket man having shot his bolt yesterday, the pond felt denuded and at a loss. No chance of Thucydides today, no trip back to a glorious past featuring classical Roman and Greek gods, and possibly even a chance to feature the war on Saturnalia.

Whatever did happen to the reptile war on Xmas? Once upon a time, around this time of year, there was much fun to be had, but now,  instead of that kind of frippery or our Henry,  there was just a dismal serve of reheated, stale reptile raging ...

The pond did wonder for a nanosecond about guest reptile Samantha """ McCulloch, but then scrolled to the bottom to check credentials ...

Uh huh, 'nuff said, there goes that option, though the pond was pleased to see the reptiles making room for an energy lobby group ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were raging at the top of the page and elsewhere ...

Why the inverted commas around 'Soviet'? Please, have the courage of your fascist convictions and speak plainly ...

And at the top of the digital page the reptiles had substituted for our Henry with a dire display of the reptile obsession with kiwi land ... full of seething resentment and bitterness at that dreadful woman...

The pond always marvels at the way that the reptiles, when threatened by anonymous scribblers, once upon a time descend into hysteria and catastrophism about blogs, but when it's one of their own, they still chortle in delight ...

Speaking of hysteria and catastrophism, that only left Claire to have a cackle, and though the pond admits it's low rent, what else to do, having been abandoned by the gods and our Henry?

Um, could we just stop there, with that shot of the mango Mussolini trying to look like a fighter albeit possibly better than looking like a prize loon announcing his superhero card collection.

That snap is a tad dated and out of touch, with connoisseurs appreciating the new look ...

But what of that caption for cackling Claire's opening snap? "Donald Trump's rhetoric has proven far more damaging to US society than any violent group".

Lest we forget who aided and abetted with their devotion to their orange Jeebus gushing from their pores ...

Did Dame Slap and the mob of baying hunds at Faux Noise have any regrets? Not really ...

Poor clueless cackling Claire, apparently completely unaware that the calls came from inside the reptile house ...

"Online posts"? 

Sounds just like another day at the lizard Oz, furiously scribbling about a 'Soviet' government ...

The pond was impressed by this game ... you had to guess who said it ...

1. “Many battles remain, but, yes, the tide is starting to turn on the mortal threat to civilization that is the woke mind virus.”

2. “It is far easier to destroy than to build. And the woke continue their destructive rampage.”

3. “We are displacing ourselves by allowing charlatans to wreck the intellectual standards of the Western world."

4. “Humor relies on an intuitive & often awkward truth being recognized by the audience, but wokism is a lie, which is why nobody laughs.”

5. “Dr. Fauci should spend Christmas alone. Encased in styrofoam and bubble wrap.”

6. “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.”

Okay, okay, some might be thinking that the pond was suggesting that it was a pick between lizard Oz scribblers and some other loon of the Elon kind - after all, only the other day the pond featured the swishing Switzer railing about the woke and the western world and so on - but it was actually between Elon and Jordan Peterson, per The Daily Beast (possible paywall).

The striking similarities in haughty pomposity and hysterical catastrophism make it tough to discern which man is the alpha-male-brain genius behind these pearls of wisdom. But if you’re keeping score at home, Musk said 1, 4, and 6, while Peterson said 2, 3, and 5.

But then Dame Slap has been infatuated for years with Jordan, that " clinical psychologist, turned self-help guru for angry men, turned Intellectual Dark Web right-wing culture war commentator", so the pond doesn't feel far from the mark ...

Meanwhile, the completely clueless Claire cackles on ...

Ah, the in-house disclaimer and the pious calling for a bowl of water ...

Apparently the reptiles have never called comrade Dan dictator Dan, and the far right loonery of the Murdochian fringes don't fit historical archetypes or old binaries ...

Of course not, butter wouldn't melt in cackling Claire's mouth, all these far right ideologies have nothing to do with Killer rabbiting on about masks and lockdowns and vaccine mandates and such like, or invocations of "Soviet" governments, or the rantings of Faux Noise and Dame Slap ... it's outside the house (allegedly) ... and to help with the argument, why not bring in someone just as clueless from the Beeb?

Actually a nanosecond listening to the Tories railing at furriners, or the GOP blathering about the southern border is a reminder that the lizard Oz and its preferred politicians do seek a hierarchy of racial purity. 

How else to explain the endless ranting about the voice, and the relentless hostility to uppity, difficult blacks?

And as for "beyond the undermining of institutions there appears to be no coherent vision", the pond couldn't have described the lizard Oz business model more succinctly ...

As for the rest, is cackling Claire capable of reining in chairman Rupert's hordes? 

Sorry, it's above her pay grade ... as if the reptiles care at all about the example their love of the fundamentalist GOP has set to the rest of the world, with their ongoing hostility to SSM, their courting of fundamentalist bigoted Xianity, and their deeply corrupted judiciary ...

And so to a bonus, and what else to do than feature the lizard Oz editorialist regurgitating the thoughts of comrade Samantha McCulloch, in the hour of big petroleum's need?

Okay, okay, the pond only went with that regurgitation of the fine thinking of Kevin so it could slip in an infallible Pope, mangled into 16:9 frame, but with the essential import still there ...

Oh dear ... buckle up for a never ending ride with the reptiles ... and that still left another big chunk of lizard Oz editorialist to go - how passionate they are about preserving the rights of the looters and rent seekers - but the pond had an immortal Rowe standing by for a closer ...

Sublime how casually the reptiles dismiss an inconvenient "time lag", and how they still yearn for coal, and hopefully an energy disaster, so that nobody will notice the disaster unfolding around and on and to the planet ...

What a dismal Friday, and yet at least there's an immortal Rowe for a closer, featuring talking gas bottles ... though the pond still can't get the image of a cow chewing its cud out of mind when thinking of beefy boofhead Angus ...