In which the pond yearns for a freebie junket, preferably with taxpayer grant money as a bonus, in genuine Canberra Caterist style ...

The pond was reminded yesterday of the perfect way to engage in calm, civilised, rational conversation.

Start off by assuring anyone below the Berrimah line that they don't have a clue, and bemoan the chattering class while chattering away in Crikey, hoping to catch the attention of the chattering classes.

The pond was reminded of discussions with citizens of Darwin who had offered the pond a completely respectable above the Berrimah line position.

Namely, if one may speak in the Tamworth style, that Shane Stone was a bit of a dropkick, deadhead, dunderheaded fuckwit of the first water, and if anyone wanted a name to lead when discussing the woes of the Northern Territory and its current situation,  they were entitled to begin by chattering about the entirely useless Stone who made Neanderthals seem quite modern...

Enough of civilised discourse - Crikey obviously thought it was too much to ask its punters to pay for Stone dross and abuse and put it outside the paywall here, though it perhaps should have occurred to them that trolling their readership was a counter-intuitive business model:

If that offends the “chattering classes” down south — the commentators, lawyers, UN cheer squad — then try walking in our shoes. I didn’t introduce mandatory sentencing for property offences on a whim; I did so after careful consideration of all the reasonable options.

Laura Norder out for another walk ... and the few that bothered to comment offered the predictable response of those who'd been flamed.

And so to the real treat of the day, because there are many gulags and many defenders of gulags, and today is Caterist day ...

Where would the pond be without federal government taxpayer funded - please only grants with no obligation to repay - whimsy from the Caterists?

It turns out that the Caterists will take their funding from any source, but that's a special treat at the very end of this long slog.

But first a warning. It might quickly dawn on unsuspecting punters that today's piece reads unnervingly like propaganda for the Israeli government and the punitive Netanyahu regime ...

Now if you happen to google Netanyahu's name right at the moment, here's what you might find ...

Go on, google away, the pond assures you there's absolutely nothing to see here, you might gain some insights and you won't miss anything below, except the dribbling and fawning of a Caterist.

And you certainlywon't find any of that bad news stuff in the starry-eyed world of the Caterist ...

Of course, of course, you should have realised. It's all the fault of the Palestinians, and "occupation" deserves "inverted commas" and so on and so forth ...

And so to the big reveal at the end of the next gobbet ...

The pond dips its lid to the Caterists. They really don't mind where the freebies come from, they're up for it, and they'll write just the sort of copy their hosts expect.

Of course if you head off to the AIJAC site, you'll find its just an interested lobby group running the standard sort of propaganda you might expect of any one-eyed, biassed lobby group ...

It's a bit like spending time with Manly or Collingwood supporters, only with graver implications.

Here's the sample at the top of the page this day ...

The pond was particularly impressed by that exclusive about settlement expansion failing to match natural growth ...

You could of course google this story ...

On July 31, 2015, suspected Jewish terrorists came down from a settlement outpost in the hills and firebombed two homes in Duma, 25 km. southeast of Nablus. One house was empty, but the other fire killed three members of the Dawabsha family and brought renewed international scrutiny to Israel’s settlement enterprise.

Or you could head off to The Independent to read ...

A secret document from 1970 has revealed that one of the first Israeli settlements in the West Bank was built under false pretences to circumvent international law. Minutes of a meeting at the office of former Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan show politicians, civil servants and military leaders discussing plans for Kiryat Arba, on the outskirts of Hebron. 
The document, seen by Haaretz, described how 250 homes for Jewish families would be built on land confiscated by military order for “security purposes”, and claimed to be for military use.

Just for a little balance ... and if you read down far enough you might come to this ...

Settlement construction has continued in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite being considered illegal under international law and condemned by the United Nations and International Court of Justice. They are regarded as a key barrier to dwindling hopes for a two-state solution and full Palestinian Authority control of the occupied territories. 
Newly announced plans for more than 1,000 new units provoked fresh alarm this week. 
Tobias Ellwood, the Middle East minister, expressed concern over 770 settler homes proposed between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. “As we have previously made clear, all settlement activity is illegal under international law, and damages prospects for a two-state solution,” he said.

Never mind. The pond is always open to a freebie junket.

Why if someone were to spring for a lunch in Woollahra, the pond might even be inclined to write something positive about the hapless brick wall known as Malware, who made the Gillardish mistake of waking the petulant narcissist kraken ... while appointing a commissioner who's already written his report...

Kick them all out ...

Now there's a good way to avoid the cost of a Royal Commission. Sack the lot of 'em, and by the way, can we give a nostalgic, retrospective kick to Shane Stone while we're passing?

And so to Pope, and more immortal Pope here, as he celebrates a domestic gulag ...