Bob Carr may have been Foreign Affairs Minister for only 12 months, but he started talking to United States diplomats about internal Labor politics nearly 40 years ago.

from The Shovel …..

In a final nod to the benefits of market capitalism, Baroness Thatcher has, on her deathbed, asked that all public memories of her be privatised.

There’s an old Jew­ish prophecy that, as end times ap­proach, his­tory will speed up. Sur­vey­ing the Aus­tralian po­lit­i­cal land­scape, it seems Ar­maged­don must be nigh. Events move in fast for­ward.

Democratic systems struggle to thrive among people threatened by disease - or so says a pair of maverick evolutionary psychologists. Jim Giles investigates their controversial claim

In a sign of just how tough life on Struggle Street has become, the Jones family of Sydney today announced to family and friends that their Christmas holiday to Aspen had been scrapped. The Joneses earn just $250,000 a year.

The 1980 adventure movie Raise the Titanic was one of the all-time box office stinkers. Based on the unlikely premise that the wreck of the great liner contained a rare mineral that could save the world from godless communism, it had a hilarious scene in which the ship popped to the surface apparently unscathed after 68 years on the sea floor.

Tony Abbott is coasting to The Lodge on a dream run, first class up the pointy end. No federal opposition leader has had it so easy since 1941, when Labor's John Curtin gained government after the collapse of the Menzies-Fadden wartime minority Tories. And no opposition leader has so little deserved such good fortune.

The NSW Labor Party has be­come a crime scene. Sus­sex Street has been cor­doned off and foren­sic sci­en­tists sent in to gather ev­i­dence. On the other side of the thick yel­low tape, a crowd of con­fused ALP branch mem­bers has gath­ered in search of answers.

If President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he’ll do Canada a favor.

Fresh from its triumphant negotiations with all three political parties for more effective monitoring of the press, Hacked Off, the group that champions victims of press intrusion, has begun to attract the attention of foreign governments that suffer from their own troublesome Fourth Estates.

No form of worker exploitation would exactly surprise me coming from Walmart, a company so dedicated to low-wage labor that many of its workers have to depend on food stamps and Medicaid. But doesn't it seem like there are just a few things that could go wrong with  this idea?

Moral quandaries often pit concerns about principles against concerns about practical consequences. Should we ban assault rifles and large sodas, restricting people’s liberties for the sake of physical health and safety? Should we allow drone killings or torture, if violating one person’s rights could save a thousand lives?

A great week for huffin'-'n'-puffin', what? First, Alexander Downer takes an airbrush to history. And then, more gobsmackery by our top soldier, on what he ''always knew'' was a raw deal for the people of Afghanistan's Oruzgan province.

Richard Heinberg talks about the new book "Energy: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth," a haunting look at our current energy path.