If Tony Abbott thought radio host Alan Jones would provide him with a sympathetic forum to bask in his successful hosting of the G20 summit on Monday, he had another thing coming.

The adolescent country. The bit player. The shrimp of the schoolyard.

The meteoric rise to power of Barack Obama in 2008 was propelled by one of the greatest demagogic US Presidential campaigns of all time: To millions of young Americans, he promised to end the US wars in the Middle East. To millions of working and middle class voters, he promised to end the economic crisis by confronting Wall Street.

Suppose you’re in the supermarket shopping for groceries. While you’re strolling the aisle with your cart, a shadowy figure looms over your shoulder and changes the prices on the items you want to buy before you get a chance to pick them up.

from our friend Vacy Vlacy …..

from Crikey …..

More Australian companies are facing an online backlash over halal-certified products in an organised attack by a network of Islamophobic groups on social media.

To enter the lost city, go through me.

Through me you go to meet a suffering

Petition · Show the public your British Citizenship renunciation form, proving you were not elected to our Parliament illegally ....

Remember the existential threat to our nation’s survival represented by Labor’s abject failure to rein-in the country’s spiralling, out-of-control debt?

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed nuclear weapons testing.