In which the Caterists explain yet again that monetary compensation, or even perhaps Department of Finance grants only make matters worse ...

They say a meme a day keeps the doctor away, and this was about the only way that the pond could bear to be reminded of the way that the Gucci draining of the swamp worked ...

$3,600! 

Drain the Gucci!

Sublime echoes of Dame Slap having a go at Tom Ford (and never mind the terrible movie he's made) ...

And now, before the pond gets to the Caterist business of the day - such a chore, such drudgery - the pond must spend a little time on parochial matters ...

Apparently no one at ABC News reads the pond, and therefore missed its warning about the sublime stupidity of its live staging of news outside parliament house in Macquarie street ... 

The first one - featuring the going of the Baird - was a disaster - and then they did it again for the coming of the Gladys, who has made Sydney public transport what it is today (though it should be added, with much help from Bob Carr in the planning, but look, it's that a spiffing Olympics park ... why not catch that to work?)...

Of course they've now tidied it up for iView, but for what might have been only 20 or 30 seconds, but felt like an eternity of stupidity and folly exposed to the world...

It was a stunning example of dead air, with the hosts staring at the still live camera and making wrap-up gestures and signs, while a techie wandered into shot, tidying up cables and generally fixing things up ... and still they stood, waving, bemused, unable to be heard, but visibly silly at every anguished moment ...

It was an eternity of disbelief and embarrassment. It couldn't be called a tragedy - nobody died, there was no pain, only laughter - but it was truly beyond the valley of the pathetic ...

The pond has no idea what's going on inside Michelle Guthrie's ABC - well it's certainly not the pond's ABC - but all the visible signs are that it's a disaster zone ... 

Oh sure we could balance the books and ask why SBS exists at all - so they can show programs like the appalling, abysmal "Undressed" - two strangers undress each other? - you mean the pond no longer has to go into a porn booth to score the jollies? 

But SBS has been a basket case for years - John Howard and his board conspired to kill it off and succeeded admirably, and now all that's left are varying forms of Vice and Nazis  ...

Sad, but at one time the pond had a passing affection for the ABC. Now the game plan is all too clear. Turn it into a national disgrace, or a national comedy, and then let the whittling down to nothing begin ...

And so to the Caterist business of the day ...

Oh dear, it's another bout of black-bashing from a comfortably well off, government grant cash in the paw funded, self-satisfied, up himself to the point where the shining sun can no longer be seen, Caterist ...

Well let's see how the black bashing gets under way ...

Hold it, was that the black flag being mocked?

Isn't this the time of year that we usually get righteous sanctimonious messages about respecting the flag, whitey sub-branch?

There's more nonsense of the Maumill kind at Fairfax here,  but the pond hasn't a clue what he's banging on about, like an outside dunny door in a Tamworth gale sweeping over the north west slopes and plains...

Why, if it's okay for the black flag to be mocked, then the pond is right onside for another 'chuck another flag on the barbie' event ...

Well that one went viral, and the ABC, along with all the other click bait orientated media, went wild for it, with the ABC here and here ...

How easy it is for the pond to get distracted from a bit of black-bashing by the Caterists ... how unfair is that? Please allow the pond to return to the main game ...

Actually the pond is more moved to tears by a deep love for Caterist misery porn. 

This is the misery porn that arises when a well-heeled grant in the paw bludger off government mocks those who are less well off, and especially takes a set to uppity blacks who dare wander off the reservation where the Caterists deem it appropriate that they stay ...

So you want an air of self-gratification, and self-aggrandisement, and absolutely zero by way of self-reflection?

The whining, moaning, fretting, serially abusive Caterists are here to serve ...

Now of course there always comes a moment when the pond ritually reprints at least one of the Department of Finance notices in relation to the cash in the paw offered up to the Menzies Research Centre Limited ...

As soon as the Caterists mentioned monetary compensation and the way that throwing money at a problem generally makes it worse, the pond had no alternative ...

Otherwise the irony and hypocrisy overload which has sent the needle careening to 11 threatens to produce a red line explosion ...

But as a variation, the pond also thought it should head off to the MRC wiki so this could be recalled (Greg Hunters careful of southern walri can find the footnotes here):

There you go, difficult, pesky, tricky, uppity blacks, that's how it's done. 

You see, you take the cash in the paw from the taxpayer, and then by magical transmutation - a kind of transubstantiation if you will - you give the money back to the Liberal party ...

And so to the wrap up from the well fed, and inordinately self-satisfied, smug Caterist ...

Well it's a fair call that the Caterists know how to conduct unending vendettas with their patented formula for unending grievances ...

Week in, week out, it's whine and moan and whinge, while all the time pocketing the government dollar ...

So there's the Caterist tip for pesky, difficult, tricky, uppity blacks ...

Get your cash in the paw from the Department of Finance, and you too can send out sharp notes with a smug, self-serving, righteous tone, and the reptiles of Oz will think it's jolly good and a grand way to develop an admirable business model ...

Or you could just burn an Australian flag on invasion day, on the principle that's what's good enough for the Oz reptiles trashing the Aboriginal flag is good enough for the invader flag ...

And so to end where we began this day, with the help of Rowe and many more splendidly helpful Rowe cartoons here ... and there's a gallery of a hundred of his 2016 cartoons here...