Thanks to the Caterists, a tie-dyed T-shirt joke, and useless broadband being back, the pond is Fairfaxian p*ss*d ...

Quick, look over there:

Thank the long absent lord you were distracted; for a minute there we thought you might have noticed that other story at the front of the lizard Oz:

Yes there it is, that bit about Abbott cutting ambitions on carbon.

It is of course an outrageous, fraudulent and mischievous headline. Abbott's never had any ambitions on carbon ... it should have read Abbott lives up to his ambitions for coal, coal, coal for Australia and the woooorrrrrld ...

Of course the Fairfaxians are already wringing their limp, pathetic and anxious paws:

The defensive work done, Abbott then moves to the offensive – attacking Labor. You could see the opening salvo in this assault on the front page of the Daily Telegraph on Monday with its banner headline: "ALP's $600billion Carbon Bill". The subheading: "Power bills up 78per cent". 
These startling figures are based on modelling commissioned by Labor, so it must be true, no? 
ANU's Jotzo: "I went into the spreadsheet they used to get these numbers. The modelling had a high, central and low price scenario. "They've taken the high price scenario. Then they've presented everything in cumulative and nominal terms, not in real terms. 
"Presenting the future in today's dollar's makes no sense whatsoever unless you want to make the numbers look bigger." 
It's propaganda, naturally. Abbott is trusting that his scare campaign of 2011-13 will be as potent today as it was then. 
Public confidence in Bill Shorten's Labor is about as high as it is in Abbott's government, so this campaign might yet work. 
But much has changed since Abbott electricity scare Mark 1. First, the electorate knows that last scare campaign was just that. Labor's carbon tax came and went; the economy grew unhindered. Second, the energy market has changed dramatically, and is about to change even more dramatically. You won't hear Abbott pointing out that all Australia's coal-fired electricity generators are scheduled to be retired over the next 10 years. 
You won't hear him saying what Moody's credit rating agency said in its Monday report on the coal sector: "Coal remains a main fuel source for electricity production worldwide, but the concerted efforts by large coal-importing nations – including the US, China and Japan – to move towards renewable sources and natural gas continue to reduce demand for coal." 
Or even citing last week's speech by his Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, pointing out that China's imports of coal declined by 37.5per cent year on year in the first six months of this year... (more here).

Yes, yes, that's all very well. Fancy making a living pointing out that the Terrorists are full of lies and wilful distortion and manipulation of statistics in the name of propaganda. Fancy pointing out emerging trends in the market for coal.

The pond's not interested in that sort of lah di dah muck.

The pond wants a real warrior for Australia, a man preferably sucking on the taxpayer's lavish teat while standing up for true working class values - provided of course, the subsidies continue and he doesn't have to get down into an actual coal mine and do a little digging, as some of the pond's relatives were wont to do.

Yes, it's the Ming the Merciless man, it's Caterist day, and there was celebration and dancing and soul clapping hands with joy at the pond.

Let's not stand in the Caterist way. Sock it to 'em Nick baby:

And there, in his kale chip-munching fuck wittery is a fine example of the Caterist at his most insightful and useful.

As for that bit about the University of Melbourne not owning any shares, that must come as good news for Glyn Davis who back on the 29th March 2014 scribbled for the lizard Oz Does Melbourne invest in fossil fuels?

‘Does the University of Melbourne invest in fossil fuels?’ ask posters around campus. Posing the question has triggered a lively discussion among the governing Council, and with our institutional advisers. 
Ethical investment is an important topic, and the debate is very welcome. The starting point is shared recognition of the challenge.

What followed was exceptionally tedious and evasive, in classic academic style, but eventually Davis sort of got around to the sort of point:

One argument advanced by 350.org and the related campaign is the poor long-term prospects for fossil fuel companies as their products become less socially acceptable. The University acknowledges through its investment beliefs that companies which effectively manage their environmental, social and corporate governance responsibilities should give better risk adjusted returns over the long term. IMC has committed to monitoring closely the potential impact of climate change issues on the value of investments, and working with VFMC on the risk profile of fossil fuel investments. It is for investment experts, though, to make the judgment calls about how the market will treat particular types of current and future investments. 
Now that the issue of ethical investments commands widespread consideration, there will be benefactors who have concerns about particular environmental, social and corporate governance matters such as fossil fuels. It will be important to acknowledge and accommodate that judgment where feasible. To this end, where in future a donor wishes to stipulate investment parameters for their endowment which are not accommodated through the investment portfolio managed by VFMC, the University will, subject to certain conditions (such as the quantum of the endowment, which must be significant), establish a separate specific investment fund. The investment returns will be specific to the fund and may therefore be subject to greater volatility than those of the VFMC managed fund, and the cost of managing that fund may also be greater. Nonetheless, this will allow donors to decide the balance of risk and return they consider appropriate for their contribution to the future of the University of Melbourne. 
The ‘Fossil Fuels’ campaign raises important issues and is to be welcomed. Through revised investment arrangements we can ensure funds received in future are placed in the market in ways consistent with the intentions of donors. The Council’s Investment Management Committee will continue to work closely with VFMC on investment strategy, knowing the returns achieved support sustainability and resilience through research, learning and engagement.

The long absent lord alone knows what Davis is blathering about with his talk of managed investments - could that possibly involve shares? - and the University of Melbourne benefiting from managed investments - could that involve money? - or perhaps it's just that the Caterist is a fuckwit beyond measure, so let's return to his plea for coal, coal, coal for Australia ...

Yep, there's a man deeply imbued with scientific and social understanding. Only an Einstein could come out with "Today, environmental campaigners prefer Armani suits to tie-dye."

The man is an infinite font of cliches and monumental stupidity, an idiot unwisely, perhaps criminally, funded by taxpayers and put in charge of a keyboard ...

And so the rest of the world moves on, and Abbott and his acolytes, the Caterists the loyalist of them all, stay stuck in the rapidly receding past ...

Speaking of which, that provides the pond for an opportunity to pivot and briefly note an irony ...

He botched the Coalition's broadband policy?

Well who can forget that memorable press conference, but credit where credit is due, Terrorists.

It was the luddite Abbott that botched the Coalition's broadband policy for as long as he's been in charge, and that willing eastern suburbs fop, big Mal, has willingly rolled out the botched policy, because every master must have his facilitator, his pawn, his willing mug, his Albert Speer trying to keep the ball bearings rolling lest the machines of war grind to a halt (apologies, here's a fiver for the Godwin's Law swear jar).

Of course there is an upside. The pond's son has recently had to endure the pond's broadband. After living with unlimited fast TPG, it's come as a real shock. To watch the dismay as he tries to download a 2 gig file is undiluted joy ...

And so to the news:

The Singaporean company named as one of Telstra's biggest worries by its outgoing chief executive David Thodey has labelled parts of the $41 billion national broadband network as "shit" as it prepares to launch services in Australia.

Shit?

No Fairfaxians, he didn't say it was 'sh*t', he said it was shit!

Even so, that really is being a bit unkind to fecal matter, Optus is beyond the valley of the shit - who can forget its recent landline meltdown? - but do go on:

MyRepublic is a Singaporean start-up led by co-founder Malcolm Rodrigues that offers unlimited broadband at super-fast speeds for low prices. When asked about competition during his exit interviews, Mr Thodey said it was tier-three disrupters including MyRepublic that the company worried about more than TPG or Optus. 
Now the disrupter is coming to Australia, having previously launched in New Zealand and Indonesia. Mr Rodrigues told Fairfax Media that MyRepublic will build a local team this year and launch services by mid-2016 with the goal of shaking up the entire broadband market. "We've kind of re-engineered the economics of telcos and this is what David Thodey was talking about," he said. "We're going to come in with an unlimited 100 megabit per second offer at the $80-$90 per month range. 
"We acquire customers at a fraction of the cost of incumbents, we [provide] service [to] those customers at a fraction of the cost and we don't churn." 
By comparison, Optus charges $125 per month for broadband bundles with similar conditions while TPG customers pay $99 per month. Telstra does not offer home consumers 100Mbps speeds or unlimited downloads. 
Mr Rodrigues said he "loved the NBN" but that it had lost its way by moving onto fibre-to-the-node technology, which partly relies on slower copper phone lines to cut costs and save time. His company benefits from networks that operate on one foundation technology. 
The Coalition ordered the change after Labor's NBN rollout hit major construction problems and delays. But Mr Rodrigues claimed FTTN reliance on copper would see it deliver slower speeds than promised – a claim the government strongly denies.

The government might deny it, but everyone knows the government lies, and lies, and lies ...

And then, yes there is an "and then":

"I don't know what [the government] is doing on the other policy fronts but on this they've completely stuffed it," he said. "More and more Australians will leave the country looking for jobs and you'll continue to be a resource based economy – the hope of building IT jobs and a digital economy will kind of be more difficult to achieve. 
"On FTTN we'll market 100Mbps and when people come over we'll say 'sorry, thank your government [because] you're on a shit network and the most you can get is 20-30Mbps, but we will continue to lobby your government to turn it into a fibre-to-the-home one and as soon as you get there we'll get you a free upgrade to fibre'." (and more here).

Completely stuffed it? Such a polite and modest understatement.

Well you can leave your slippers under the pond's bed any time you like Mr Rodrigues, or preferably just hook us up to some of that pure crack broadband, but since you asked about the other policy fronts the luddite Abbott is working on, let's not start talking about a future involving a digital economy ... it's a resource based economy, and we're digging up the country and ruining it and shipping the diggings offshore.

It's called coal, coal, coal for Australia and the wooorrrrld, and thanks to the fancy pants words of the Caterists of Australia, it's turning the country to shit, with a fear of wind turbines and solar, and all sorts of cornball mung bean comedy and jokes about tie-dyed T-shirts rolling out, as if we're still in the 1960s and hippies are dancing up on the stage in Hair, and as if you'd find any self-respecting greenie hipster in Newtown caught dead wearing either ancient Armani or a tie-dyed T-shirt ...

All those references do is remind the pond of that ancient 1950s Ming the merciless white picket fence culture where fuckwits like the Caterists still mentally live ... a long ago lost world of ancient angry white male memories which never really existed even when people lived there ...

Never mind, just to show that the pond is up for a mung bean joke, the New Yorker cartoon below caused great amusement to the certified coeliac in the house, and below that is an intertubes joke even Tony Abbott might get. Or would he?

Remember you can get the cartoons in any issue by just googling up the date of the magazine, as here for the gluten joke: