In which totally unique experiences keep on coming ...

After catching up on Media Watch - there was a summary of the Sky News affair and the Murdochian drift to white nationalist thinking, and Karl caught the eye with his love of public subsidy for private mates - the pond made the fatal mistake of hanging around for a few seconds to watch a promotion for the ABC, which was in turn fawning, sick-inducing and nauseating …

The pond took it as a sign that under the Justin Milne and Michelle Guthrie regime, the ABC had reached a nadir of self-doubt, and had lost all self-esteem, with this attempt at self-congratulation just the most recent example …

But it was when one of the encomium deliverers talked of the ABC as "a very unique beast" that the pond ran screaming from the room, and had to spend a few hours in darkness resting shattered nerves.

Of course this isn't a totally unique experience for the pond - one of the joys of watching the ABC is the way it routinely provides comprehensively unique reminders that there is no longer an in-house style guide - but it meant that when the pond emerged, it was feeling pretty unique in terms of emotional fragility, and possibly not in the best state of mind to enjoy the awesomely unique comedy stylings of Barners and the onion muncher.

Yep, Barners has a book to flog, and has urged that Malware return his old mate to cabinet, and he's been completely unique in his ability to hog the headlines …

And the onion muncher has been relatively unique too …

That cracked the pond up - the free section of Murdochian media provided its summary of his infinitely unique performance on the ABC here - and the pond had to spend a few hours in darkness attempting to stifle the laughter …but there was more …

Is it any wonder the reptiles are sounding glum?

But enough of these fairly unique comedy stylings, because the headlines also bought this odd juxtaposition of headlines …

 

Well played Samantha …

Maintain the rage and the white nationalist tendencies of the lizard Oz…don't let that talk of a demonising racist media haunt you, keep on with the important work of a demonising racist media ...

Well after all this, the pond felt the need to settle down with an old favourite …

Now right from the get-go, the pond thought that the Caterist might be sounding a little too modest and too humble.

After all, here's a lad who graduated from  the University of Exeter with a degree in sociology (or so Greg Hunters are told), even if the most important experience in his life was the following year spent driving laundry vans …

But from those humble beginnings a noble warrior came out to the land down under with a mission to fix things and became much admired by academics for his insightful scribbling …

It takes considerable chutzpah to write a 300-page book condemning Australia's elitist 'Knowledge Class' and then thank no fewer than 60 journalists, academics, economists, historians, think-tank staff and political insiders for assistance and friendship. But that's Nick Cater of The Australian for you: the anti-intellectual sociology graduate and broadsheet editor, the great admirer of the battlers in the outer suburbs and regions who nevertheless chooses to reside in inner Sydney. (LaTrobe here).

But that's what a degree in sociology from Exeter will give you, an amazingly unique brand of chutzpah ...

Young people given false hope? But our Nick now runs an institute and gets to deliver astonishingly unique insights each week in the lizard Oz ...

The case for uncapped public subsidies?

Oh alright the pond supposes that there should be some form of capping, provided that the subsidy recurs year after year, and will at least take care of the tea and biscuit money …

The pond has no idea why the Caterist keeps talking of the dangers of public subsidy … and even seems to be suggesting that he somehow lives in the real world …

The pond would like to live in a real world where each year a subsidy over the 200k mark keeps turning up in the pond's bank account ...

And there you have it. It would be a courageous government that cut funding to the Menzies Research Centre. 

Government subsidies don't help the Australian think tank industry … instead it allows the likes of the Caterists to wallow in a world of complacency and it discourages an ability to offer innovation …like better laundry van delivery services …

Instead of contributing to the wealth of the nation, the government seems to be encouraging Caterist anxiety that there might be too much government subsidy for universities, and not nearly enough for the Menzies Research Centre …

This sense of unfair competition for public cash in the paw is enervating and might lead to a grey blanket of conformity and the dull banality of low expectations …as sometimes happens when the dull grey ash of a Caterist column hits the tongue's taste buds …

Never mind, as always, it helps to have a Rowe sherbet to hand to wash away the taste of a Caterist column, and today he's in fine form doing a Karl, with more totally unique experiences to hand here ...