In which the pond settles for the usual serve of the Major and the Caterist ...

 

 

The pond likes to think it carefully curates its reptiles for study by passing readers, but understands why some might question its decision not to jump to the Caterist, there on the far right, straight away. 

It's the obvious choice, and the Caterist is the obvious hot contender, especially when the early morning line-up of other reptile contenders is considered ...

 

There's simplistic Simon talking about a clip over the tin ear, there's Josh explaining how poverty is a good thing, and there's the lizard Oz endorsing Josh, and Josh endorsing the lizard Oz, in a tango of love and poverty, and there's the venerable Sexton with a kind word for Vlad the impaler's European schemes, and there's Fergo announcing that the Nats lack empathy ... when really you only need an hour or so to get that sensitivity training down pat ... why it's easy as putting a bull to work with the heifers...

It was all very predictable, so the pond looked elsewhere, and discovered the reptiles had come up with a ripper illustration of the mutton Dutton ... 

 

Dammit, the photo the reptiles used in the story wasn't nearly as good, but yes, the reptile obsession with the Twitterati continued and Major Mitchell was front and centre, distracting the pond from the news of the phoenix Crown, with the pond discovering on the weekend that the Balmain peninsula provides admirable views of this architectural monstrosity, that priapic thrust into the sky.

But enough of Freudian matters, on with the Major ...

 

 

 

 

The pond gets it of course ... the Major has always hated social media favourites, and it's surely the fault of social media that newspapers have followed social media favourites like lambs to the slaughter.

 

The pond itself refuses to use Facebook or Twitter,  but it seems that only the pond and the Major have the triumphant amounts of will required, while everyone else wastes time on idle titillations ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed ... which is why it was startling to see the lizard Oz's digital edition this morning ... with the reptiles alternate illustration a cartoon invoking another event overlooked by the Major ...

 

 

The Oz tree killer edition was frankly no better ...

 

 

But then the pond was dumbfounded and knocked for six by the Major's next observation ...

Apparently, the easiest place to find up-to-date coverage and pictures was on ... Twitter ...

 

Indeed, indeed. It might of course be possible to do both ... look at the floods and their dire impact, and chew on the gum of the masturbatory Canberra bubble at the same time. But the Major has a simple mind, and he never likes the notion of keeping two contradictory thoughts in his head ... like Twitter bad, Twitter good ...

 

Meanwhile, quite outside the Major's ken, is the mice plague that has been haunting areas of New South Wales near the pond's old stomping ground.

And yet anyone who's been in a mice plague or a flood, will have empathy for the victims, while also being fascinated by the masturbatory ways of the Canberra bubble.

If anything, there's a resonance in the mice plague with Canberra lifestyle choices ...

...the 86mm of rain reported over the weekend at Gilgandra was a good fall but “unless it’s enough rain to flood out burrows, they’re just going to hunker down, wait for the rain to pass and be back in business”.
Rain would “make conditions less favourable for mice”, Henry said, but “whether this is the precursor [to the end of the plague] is uncertain, unfortunately.”
When floods did kill off mice, it usually happened quickly. “Farmers talk about the mice disappearing virtually overnight,” the research officer said. “They get to such high numbers they become quite stressed … they start to run out of food, which facilitates the spread of disease, they start eating the sick ones, they turn on the babies, and then it’s all over. It’s quite a grisly story.” (a week ago in the Graudian here).

It even made NBC a couple of days ago here, and one unlucky soul even copped a dose of the rare lymphocytic choriomeningitis ... (ABC here).

In the old days, a rabbit plague was newsreel fodder, as on YouTube here ... and yet the Major has no time for an old-fashioned plague ...

 

 So it's all the fault of social media, leading hapless News Corp editors by the nose to discuss what's going down in Canberra, while elsewhere others struggle through assorted crises? 

What a goose he is ... because everybody, especially cartoonists, enjoy all sorts of bubbles, as with David Rowe bubbling away on the weekend, with more bubbling here ...

 

 

Why it even came to the pond's attention that the new thugby league team to hate - those Sharkies from the Shire - it used to be Manly - lost, and so there was even more dancing on SloMo's grave ...

 

 

 

...while some couldn't afford the time to spend on the boofheads in the Canberra bubble, and went about the business of getting rid of the mud (though the stench takes a long time to fade from house, nostrils and mind, a bit like the stench emanating from Canberra).

Never mind, for the day's bonus, the pond decided it would revert to the Caterist ...

 

Sadly this meant that the pond's other cartoons weren't quite on the right page ...

 

Never mind, the pond thought it could keep a number of ideas in the air at one time, and so it ran the cartoon, and then it ran with the Caterist ...

 

Indeed, indeed ...

Pond: “Can you tell me what Dr Caterist actually has his PhD in and what scientific institution he works for?”
Menzies Research Centre: “He’s not a scientist, he doesn't actually have a PhD or medical doctorate of any kind, he’s in the lobbying field, he works for a Liberal party aligned, federally government-funded alleged think tank, namely us, which gives him the time to scribble climate science denialism for the lizard Oz.”
Pond: “My understanding is that he’s actually an expert in the movement of flood waters in quarries, and was sued for a substantial sum when he get it wrong.”
Menzies Research Centre: “Yeah, we know, he's a goofball, but he's our goofball.”

To be fair to non-Doctor Caterist, goofballs are not entirely ignorant of drilling, nor are they insensitive to the risks of wallet pocket damage when it comes to talk of science.

Actually that was another snide joke from the goofball, leading off the next gobbet ...

 

Indeed, indeed. Ten billion people on the planet, looting and pillaging its resources, what could go wrong? Which plague is the worst? Humans, mice, rabbits or cockroaches, and which is the likeliest to survive at the rate we're going?

Never mind, the Caterist is in the business of drilling, and pillaging and plundering, and dresses it all up with a healthy dose of climate science denialism, though given his skill with flood waters in quarries, please pardon a little scepticism on the pond's part ...

So there's the science done and dusted this Monday morning, and it shows it's possible to deal with the Major, the masturbatory Canberra bubble, and the wanking of the Caterist all in the one go ... and just to conclude on another eminently scientific note, this is the closer for a recent First Dog, with the cartoon available in full here ... and what do you know, it involved that other crisis entirely overlooked by the Major ...