In which the pond turns to the Caterists and Dame Groan ...

The pond is never sure whether the reptiles are mocking the Donald, or mocking themselves for admitting that they're the Donalds of down under journalism ... how else to explain why they're lumping Donald with alternative facts when it was Kellyanne that devised the meme? Credit where credit is due ...

Well when it comes to facts, alternatee and otherwise, the pond always goes elsewhere ... including a trip to The Monthly to read Paddy Manning's woeful tale of the gigantic NBN disaster: Network Error, What will be the cost of a patchwork NBN?, aided and abetted by shockingly stupid reptile misreporting over the years and monstrous Malware stupidity ...

The pond had promised never to mention its fluent German "Die Optus Die" again ... but there it was, popping up ...

Tough, mug punter losers.

There's much more in this epic tale of folly, stupidity, bad decisions, outright lying and massive delusion ... not least the dissembling malign Malware who made sure of monstrous failure ...

There's a lot more in the read about this sorry tale of bungling on a massive scale, which will ensure that many wallow back in the copper broadband dark ages ...

But enough of actual insights, because it's the pond's duty to scour the reptile runes each day, and today is Caterist day, though the pond likes to think of it as Colonel Blimp day ,as it inhales the Caterist hot air and thought bubbles ...

Whenever the pond reads that a Malware policy makes sense, it's forced to ask how it is that the country ever allowed the British to head down under, and stick out a paw for a handsome taxpayer-funded government grant ...

Is the pond being xenophoboc? Will the Caterist offer an explanation?

Oh just fuck off back to Britain you gormless git.

Oops sorry, wherever did that bit of xenophobic bigotry come from? The pond is supposed to have a furrowed cosmopolitan brow but nativism of the most pagan kind comes easily when confronted with a Caterist ...

Is it wrong for the pond to get upset when a fuckwitted, well-heeled cosmopolitan spouts bullshit about cosmopolitans, especially when the siren sounds, warning of an import to the colonies sounding off ,while holding out the paw for a federal government taxpayer grant?

But enough of putting the interests of existing Australian residents in search of a grant before a new blow-in, blow-hard Pommie bastard arriving in the colony to give lectures about dinkum-ness, while scooping up a handsome stipend ...

Why should the pond have to suffer through a lecture about the internationalist mindset, when dammit, its ancestors were giving flour and sugar and tea to Captain Thunderbolt, a needy character ignored when it came to government grants and welfare ...

Indeed, indeed, and is it possible to imagine anyone living in a different world, emotionally and linguistically disconnected from the country in which they live, than a fat Canberran cat holding out paws for a government grant? A grinning fat cat as it slurps on its chosen cream? 

The pond never gets tired of the ritual grand display, but should the pond waste empathy on this sort of out of bounds no goodnik?

Nope, the tragedy is that this separate development is likely to continue on, with no comfortable ending. The Caterists will always come first when it comes to scoring a decent grant ...

Meanwhile, Dame Groan was rabbiting on about similar matters, and as a recorder of reptile thoughts, the pond thought attention should be paid ...

For a moment, judging by the header, the pond thought Dame Groan might have been calling for the removal of followers of camel and goat herders and their silly biblical and Koranic texts ...and for once there might have been a meeting of minds between pond and Groan ...

Sadly, it seems Dame Groan was intent on celebrating Malware ...

It's easy to make a joke about goatherders ...but up Tamworth way there were other concerns ...

Goat, deer and turf farmers, shearers, wool buyers and classers, stock and station agents, butchers and small goods makers, horse trainers and jockeys — they are all slated to be cut from the list of eligible positions under two new foreign skilled workers visa programs. The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) said of the 95,000 workers here on the visa 20 per cent, or 15,000, work in meat processing or further up the supply chain in small goods production or at butchers' shops.

AMIC general manager Patrick Hutchinson said it is seeking urgent Government meetings. "We weren't consulted. This will put us in a position where we'll see costs increase as the pool of people we can access will decrease," he said.

The Victorian Farmers Federations' Pig Group president John Burke labelled the move a "most stupid decision" due to the difficulty it will create for rural employers. It will make it harder to source the people we need," he said. "It takes nearly 15 to 18 months to process a 457 visa application, so if the Government toughens up the rules again it will make it nigh on impossible to do it. "Then we're stuck trying to find local staff who are cut out for this industry." (ABC here).

And there's the rub. No one thought to consult them, while the policy changes were plucked out from the government's bum in a desperate attempt to improve the poll numbers and defeat the onion muncher, the real reason for all this nativism and nationalist blather gone wild amongst the reptiles ...

The problem, of course, as with the jobs taken by backpackers under 417, is that not many people want to work in abattoirs or go fruit-picking ...

Does any of this give Dame Groan a moment's hesitation or introspection?

Are the reptiles home to alternative facts?

Can anyone spot rhetorical questions?

Uh huh, well the pond is prepared to bet that Malware's bold new policy setting will be beset by adjustments to the adjustments, as it becomes clear that this hare-brained half-arsed adjustment was rushed out, not to fix acknowledged problems with 457 but as a pathetic way of doing a nativist, nationalist bump in the polls...

It turned out to be as useful as the chatter about Australian values ... said values not including a desire to work picking fruit or degutting pigs in an abattoir ... though at least it kept the cartoonists busy ...