Please, cultivate the ethos of keeping calm and carrying on, and don't worry, the Caterists are here ...

It's impossible to imagine the pond's consternation. No Caterist on view on the front digital opinion page!

A deep void opened up, a bottomless pit, a hideous absence, a glare of eyes tormenting the pond and piercing it to the core, like that Dali scene in Hitchcock's Spellbound ...

Phew, what luck, there he was, tucked away safely on the back page, as if the reptiles were somewhat ashamed at his mindless repetition of much chanted reptile talking points ...

Well it wouldn't be a fair day in Caterist land if storm damage couldn't be used to demonise climate science and all the rest of it, while brown coal routinely saves the network from storm-inflicted damage, a kind of Clark Kent of the energy world ...

Of course the Caterist was going to hate that battery thingie, of course he was going to maintain the rage and keep getting agitated about the crow eaters ...

Indeed, indeed, if there were any further proof were needed of the madness of the command economy, the notion of funding commentators should be added to the exhibit list, when, if anyone had any sense, they would be heading in the direction of a free market ...

The notion that governments can micromanage the economy or think tanks by taxes, subsidies and regulatory support was abandoned long ago across the broader economy, but strangely not so much in think tanks.

Only  a few sectors are now in need of rigorous pruning ...

In sensible jurisdictions, this sort of sucking of the taxpayer teat is being abandoned and adolescents are being weaned and asked to stand on their own tottering feet ...

Okay, the pond can never get enough of that old stones in glass houses gag, just as the Caterists can never resist bashing crow eaters and running rampant, with implicit, and sometimes very explicit, climate science denialism at the core of proceedings ...

Rent seeking should never be encouraged?

The Caterists can't help themselves.

The temptation, with that talk of implicit and explicit subsidies, is to run that old meme again ... heck, why not, just for the fun, one that hints at the longevity of the rorting ...

Meanwhile, the pond was attracted to the gloating Oz editorialist ...

It seems that the reptiles were intensely unhappy that Melbourne didn't suffer a category 10 deluge ...

Of course up north things weren't so pleasant - ABC here - and there have been recriminations about the storm warning - ABC here -  even if there was idle talk about lives having been saved ...

Let's face it, if it didn't happen in Melbourne, it simply didn't happen ... nothing that happens outside of Melbourne can be taken as being real, or credible, even if the HUNsters themselves opened their account this way ...

Flooding in Victoria’s northeast has eased and locals have been told they are out of the danger zone after the weekend’s “disastrous” deluge. Flood warnings were scaled back on Monday, and only minor warnings remained for a handful of towns. Weather bureau forecaster Michael Efron said: 

“There are still some minor warnings in place, but we’re through the worst of it.

Despite criticism of the ­bureau’s rating the storm a “10 out of 10”, he said the prediction was mostly accurate. “People thought it wasn’t so bad in Melbourne, but there were record-breaking falls not far from the city,” he said...

Uh huh. But it didn't happen in Melbourne and so it doesn't exist ...

Never mind, the pond suspects in the case of the lizard Oz case, there'd be some implicit climate science denialism at the root of the carping ...

Ah the zealots.

Not that the endless carping of the reptiles at the lizard Oz evokes zealotry or rampant mindless ideological posturing ...

Yep, it was a classic reptile dog whistle. And the meagre two comments below showed that the dogs had been called home ...

Fucketty fuck John, that's fucking amazing climate science at work right there. Fancy that Dorothea MacKeller knowing all about it way back when.

But what about Hanrahan? Didn't John O'Brien get it spot on?

Have you thought about nominating them - don't forget yourself - for a Nobel Prize, you useless, mindless, wretchedly silly goose?

Zealots? If only they moved beyond fuckwits ...

And now, all hail the chief climate science denialist with a Rowe cartoon, and more hailing, storming, thunder and lightning Rowe here ...