I've been hesitant to write about the LIBOR scandal because what I want to say goes so much further. We now know that Barclays and other major global banks have been manipulating the calculation of LIBOR through the quotation data they provided to the British Bankers Association. What I suspect is that this is not a flaw but a feature of modern financial markets. And if it was happening in LIBOR for between 5 and 15 years, then the business model has been profitably replicated to many other quotation-based reference prices.

from the Drum …..

"You are the sort of man this act aims at," Magistrate Laidlaw told a 30-year-old Sydney man, George Harris, as he sentenced him to six months' hard labour.

from Crikey …..

The thoughts of Chairman Don - same old, same old

Many may wonder what in today’s world can writers and investigative journalists actually change. At the very least, they can chronicle the truth. And that’s no mean feat. The truth matters. Dissention can not only provide an alternative to official propaganda, but also a historical account for future generations of the deceptions and barbarity currently being carried out in the names of justice and freedom.

Missing those not interested ….

from politicoz ….

When it comes to asylum seekers, the government is at an impasse, and the situation is not helped at all by the absurdities served up by the opposition.

A long-standing proposal to require all health claims on packaged food to be substantiated before they go on the market may have been derailed by the billion-dollar grocery industry, which is proposing that it be allowed to sell first, prove later.

The people who gave you Julia Gillard are now attacking the Greens.

Sam Dastyari, the right wing head of the right wing party machine in New South Wales, called the Greens ‘…extremists not unlike One Nation’.

News footage of Egyptians queuing patiently for hours to exercise their first free vote in decades is a sobering sight. Even more sobering is the whining of those Australians who currently complain about having to vote at all. Our political culture has never been more cynical; it is fraying at the edges, mired in ignorance and negativity.

Protestor In A Chicken Suit .....

Mr Abbott lied to us; he said the world would end!

Physicists the world over are tremendously excited at this week's discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson, an interesting subatomic particle. It might hold the secrets of the universe, we're told, which is why the vulgar media have taken to calling it the God particle.

The father of a young Olympic archery hopeful sat directly behind one of his daughter's rivals as she attempted to qualify and made a grunting noise after every shot, a Sydney court has heard.

from Crikey …..

US increases harassment of WikiLeaks, Assange associates