Day 43, and never mind that's budget day, it's Caterist day at the lizard Oz ...

Well aren't you excited?

So excited you want to get more Rowe here?

Already there's been much talk of black holes and zombie figures embedded from budgets past, but this is all just the standard precursor to the main event.

The pond was more interested in the three new planets and New Alien Planet Boasts Rare Triple Suns.

But speaking of zombies the pond was reminded last night by Media Watch that it had completely failed to mention Miranda the Devine and Greg 'walri' Hunt's woeful, wilful misinterpretation of the words of David Attenborough.

MIRANDA DEVINE: Well, I mean hold the front page. It’s been obvious that Greenpeace and the rest of them have been lying. I mean, they’ve used footage from, fro, you know, different reefs in different parts of the world to pretend that the Great Barrier Reef is dying. And as David Attenborough says, it’s actually in fantastic shape. — Channel Nine, Today, 7 April, 2016

Such a stupid woman, while the fatuous walri man's comments produced this response:

The producer of the Great Barrier Reef series, Anthony Geffen, responded to Hunt’s comments, encouraging him to “watch the series, you know”. “It’s like watching one of those Hollywood movies when everybody’s happy at the front and everybody’s dead at the end, and saying, ‘Well I think the family was really happy and everybody’s really good’, but you haven’t got to the end of the movie, where his whole family is lying on the floor dead,” Geffen told Guardian Australia. (here)

But enough of these comedy warm-up routines, because not so long ago a greenie-tinged reader got lost, and instead of finding their way to New Matilda, they stumbled into the pond.

Well here's a special treat for any such stray, wandering, lost and despairing soul ...

Yes, it's Caterist day, a ritual as finely honed at the pond as a kabuki dance ...

The fruity Caterists will make some phenomenally fruity remark, and the pond will marvel that the Caterists shamelessly draw down a substantial taxpayer grant to fund their centre dedicated to the memory of Ming the Merciless ... while doing a Miranda the Devine about assorted matters ...

Here we go, here we go ...

Yes, there's some pretty fair examples.

Like that remark about socialism ... easily transformed into a snarky comment that the only problem with being executive director of the Menzies Research Centre is that you never seem to run out of other people's money. Taxpayers seem an infinite well of alms ...

Or like that abuse of Alice and white rabbits down holes:

Down went the Caterists after the taxpayer grant, never once considering why in the world the Caterists deserved such extravagant funding...

And so on ...

Yes, of course, the inner-urban compassion-mongers are vastly different from the indolent executive directors of taxpayer-grant rorting "research centres" ...

This is a game that can be played for hours ... is there anything more splendid than the sight of a yapping lap dog for the rich, barking for their subsidies and a few chicken wings from the table?

It takes a special sense of irony for a Caterist to blather about those living off the public purse ... while purloining and pocketing a substantial grant from the taxpayer. That's a grant, by the way, not a loan to be repaid as a result of entrepreneurial endeavours raising enough cash to square things up. It's a dead loss on the books ...

It makes it all the joyous when reading such lines as For those in economic sectors that are obliged to make a profit, however, the modern progressive mindset is utterly perplexing.

Not as perplexing as the mindset of a man who specialises in purloining and pocketing generous taxpayer grants ... and doesn't find the ironies utterly perplexing ...

And see, here's more ironies to count ...

Meanwhile on another planet ...

(Screen cap only)

The budget will be a mad fantasy?

Hmm, someone better tell the Caterists that ScoMo is a siren of socialism, luring the Liberals ever further towards the Left ...

Or is it just another day of the pond jumping from the yapping lap dog mad to the ... truly barking mad?

Now back to New Matilda, and a Pope cartoon to round things out, with more Pope here ...