Iran plans to send a live monkey into space next month, the latest advance in a missile and space program which has alarmed Israel and its western allies that fear the Islamic Republic is seeking nuclear weapons.

The head of Iran's Space Agency on Monday said five monkeys were undergoing tests before one is selected for the flight on board a Kavoshgar-5 rocket, according to the official IRNA news agency.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last August that Iran planned to send a man into space by 2017.

Western countries are concerned the long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could be used to launch atomic warheads.

photographic mischief by Gus...

PROCLAIMING Jesus to be ''a prophet of Islam'' on billboards is a statement of belief and does not discriminate against or vilify Christians, the Advertising Standards Bureau has found.

The billboard, one of several in an awareness campaign by Islamic group MyPeace, was the subject of a series of complaints to the bureau on the grounds that the statement was insulting to those who believed Jesus to be the son of God.

Other complaints included the charge that Jesus ''must not be associated with such [an] aggressive religion'' and another claiming the advertisement was upsetting to children.

"If there is any way I can change this, I would," she said.

"But, basically, Ms Gillard has destroyed my life.

"If it takes me the rest of my life I will find a way to make sure she realises ... what a terrible thing she has done."

Ms Ranacher says the situation for pastoralists hit by the export ban is "absolutely desperate".

"Everybody is reeling from this decision and it is very hard to know what the future holds," she said.

blah blah blah...

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In response, Garnaut said that there was a tendency for economists "to tailor the analysis to what their client wants". In other words, Garnaut was suggesting that economists employed by business cannot be taken at face value. But, apparently, economists who are engaged as consultants by governments are completely credible. I asked both Cameron and ABC management why Garnaut's role as a paid consultant to the Gillard government was not mentioned during the interview. There was no reply.

Both Gillard and Abbott promised sweeping tax breaks in duelling election campaign-like pitches aimed at the hearts and hip-pockets of voters.

And each side claimed its plan was superior to the other.

But the similarities soon ended, with Labor and the Coalition taking predictable and aggressive stances on either side of the issue of carbon tax compensation.

ALBANY — Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born.

A series of Twitter posts by shadow treasurer Joe Hockey have left many Canberra insiders mystified.

Yesterday, Mr Hockey posted a series of pictures on his Twitter account of a cardboard cut-out of Kevin Rudd outside various Canberra landmarks.

"The ghost of Kevin Rudd is making guest appearances all day today, the first anniversary of his political assassination ... where will he be next?" Mr Hockey tweeted in the morning.

Mr Hockey then posted a series of photographs of the former prime minister in various locations.

fatso

Millions of pounds raised by the sale of a little-known Picasso masterpiece are to fund medical research into obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

The portrait of the artist's lover, Marie-Therese Walter, fetched £13.5m when it went under the hammer on Tuesday at Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art auction in London.

The 1935 work, "Jeune fille endormie", was given to the University of Sydney last year by an anonymous US donor on the condition that it be sold to support scientific research at the university.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/22/picasso-sold-auction

On the news tonight, Barnaby was seen defending his denialist stance of global warming by referring to little birds breathing and exhaling CO2, as if this process was comparable to our industrial CO2 and as unimportant... And he was not joking about it... He was SERIOUS. In what is obviously his midget mind, this represented the extend of his scientific understanding of the subject — and possibly that of all sciences.

And we elect these idiots...

As a sort of "grand finale" to a presentation at a conference earlier this month in Los Angeles, climate "sceptic" Lord Christopher Monckton displayed on the giant conference screen a large Nazi swastika next to a quote from Adolf Hitler.

A few seconds later came another quote, next to another large swastika – an emblem still offensive to most people seven decades after the end of WWII. The quote this time was from Australia's climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut, which suggested that "on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream science is right" on human-caused climate change.

doing the email rounds...

JOHN Howard should have stood down as Liberal leader before losing government and his seat at the 2007 poll, former Liberal Senate leader Nick Minchin has declared in his farewell speech to parliament.

Senator Minchin used his valedictory today to list his failures, not just relive successes.

He admitted his regret at not having "the courage of my conservative convictions concerning my serious reservations at the time about the US plans for the invasion of Iraq."

He also expressed his disappointment at his inability to privatise Snowy Hydro and Medibank Private during his time as finance minister.