In which the pond manages to welcome the Caterists into the New Year in the nick of time ...

Sad to say, and richly ironic though it is, the pond almost missed the Caterist offering this day, despite it having the hilarious google splash of "It's time for a prohibition on taxpayer-funded fibs."

As a dolorous doler who doles out a generous amount of fibs - while pocking a healthy swag of taxpayer cash in the paw - the pond went into a kind of meta-irony seizure mode.

Never mind, one of the burdens of of private welfarists and rent seekers is that it's hard to get by just on the government swag.

It's never enough, and so it's also obligatory for the Caterists to scribble every so often - which is to say in every column - in favour of big tobacco, big sugar, big petrol, big coal, big alcohol or whatever other 'big' business is the flavour of the month ...

So it was today, as the Caterists did their thing for grog ...

Now as always there's a favourite line in any Caterist tract, and it came early - with talk of the government extracting money from drinkers' pockets ...

Yes, it's mire post-modernist post-irony time, seeing as how the Caterists like to extract as grants money from a very generous federal government ... which presumably in turn extracted at least a teeny weeny bit of that money from drinkers' pockets ...

Officer, don't forget that duty on the gin and tonic, the cash is urgently needed for the Menzies Research Centre ...

As for the rest, the pond grew up in a family of alcoholics, though it's a fair argument that a stint on the Somme as a machine gunner did grandpappy more mental harm than his time in the pub, but we must now quickly move through the rest of the Caterists love for the grog because the pond is still in summer season catch-up mode, and we need to catch up with an earlier Caterist outing ...

Oh yes, it's rich, or at least beyond the valley of the rich.

Who wouldn't love that line "gallingly, many of these groups receive direct or indirect funding from government."

Gallingly? What about mere shameless, immodest gall?

Now there's some funding, as direct as direct can be ...

Oh indeed, and soon enough it will be decision time in 2017 for the next round of cash in the paw grants ...


Thinking about it always makes the pond go quite biblical and apocalyptic ...

And now waiter, a stiff drink if you please, because the pond must do a little catch-up ...

Yes what would all these experts and scientists know up against the magisterial insights of a grant cash in the paw man with a sublime lack of awareness of ironies or hypocrisies?

Well let's just do this one in a couple of slam dunk slabs ...

Put it another way. Last year the calendar began with the Caterists pocketing a tidy cash in the paw government grant.

The Caterists then spent the rest of the year bemoaning the way people scored cash in the paw from government ... and is still doing it right into the new year ...

Never mind, what's past is past, and besides, the new rounds of government grants will be done and dusted by February of this new and happy year ... and with a bit of luck there'll be some more cash in the paw for the righteous, sanctimonious Caterists ...

And then the Caterists can spend the next year assuring the world that everything's for the very best in the climate and the planet and what's needed instead of climate science is dinkum Oz coal for the worrrrllldddd ...

What to say in response?

Luckily the infallible Pope had a cartoon during the holyday season that seemed to cover the point in a tidy way ... and more infallible Popery here ..