The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.

If you think that's a few spies too many - spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment - one doesn't have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.

Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.

from Crikey .....

The shadows of '75 are creeping across an angry political landscape

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

from Crikey .....

Menadue: urgent need for a new approach to asylum seekers

On August 26, 2001, MV Tampa rescued 438 asylum seekers from their distressed vessel Palapa 1. Since then Australia's asylum policy has been a tale of human tragedy, political opportunism, policy failure and great cost. Today's stalemate around our treatment of asylum seekers and refugees represents one of this country's greatest moral failures.

This time David Cameron didn't mind interrupting his holiday. Two weeks after cutting short his main summer break in Tuscany because of the riots, the Prime Minister broke another family holiday in Cornwall to handle Britain's response to the dramatic endgame in Libya.

After taking a high-stakes gamble by calling for international intervention six months ago, Mr Cameron could hardly be blamed for wanting a share of the limelight when Muammar Gaddafi's regime finally crumbled.

Ii was, I thought, a legitimate question. Broadcaster Alan Jones had spent the morning speaking passionately to the crowd outside Parliament House for yesterday's ''Convoy of no confidence''.

He urged them to action, he praised them, he denounced the government and declared Australian democracy dead.

About 1.10pm, Jones handed the microphone to another speaker, and I approached him, introducing myself. I asked him whether he had taken a fee to appear at the rally.

WASHINGTON

President Obama was on the way to Alpha when a plea came for him to be, well, more alpha.

LuAnn Lavine, a real estate agent from Geneseo, a rural town just up the road from Alpha, Ill., the last stop on the president’s Midwestern bus tour, told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny: “Everyone was so hopeful with him, but Washington grabbed him and here we are. I just want him to stay strong and don’t take the guff. We want a president who is a leader, and I want him to be a little bit stronger.”

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

What’s up? Are he and his advisors morons, or just out of touch? Do they have some secret jobs-related October Surprise that will magically reemploy the 22 percent of Americans who are out of work during the last few weeks of the election? Are they the Chicago Black Sox of politics, determined to throw the race to the Republicans? Psychologist Drew Westen can’t figure it out either, wondering aloud if Obama is sick in the head.

Some ask: Is Obama a Republican?

US Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann gets dates wrong as she stops off in South Carolina on campaign trail

Republican US presidential candidate Michele Bachmann offered a "happy birthday" message to the late singer Elvis Presley even though 16 August is the anniversary of his death.

Bachmann shouted "Happy Birthday, Elvis!" from the stage at a campaign stop at the Beacon Drive In, a South Carolina restaurant famous for its fried food and sweet tea.

The ABC is preparing itself for confirmation that it has lost three veteran newsmen in a helicopter crash in remote South Australia.

Journalist Paul Lockyer, pilot Gary Ticehurst, and cameraman John Bean are believed to have been killed when their chopper crashed near Lake Eyre yesterday evening.

The experienced news crew had been working on news and feature projects in the Lake Eyre region and it is believed their Sydney-based helicopter went down in a remote area about 150 kilometres north-west of Marree at about 7:30pm.

French actor Gerard Depardieu has been accused of urinating in the aisle of a plane as it prepared to take off from Paris on Tuesday, forcing the plane to turn back to its parking spot.

A passenger on the flight said Depardieu, 62, the star of movies such as Jean de Florette and Green Card, appeared to be drunk and insisted he be allowed to use the bathroom during takeoff, when passengers must remain seated.

When he was asked by a CityJet hostess to return to his seat, Depardieu urinated in the aisle, the passenger told French radio station Europe 1 on Wednesday.

from Crikey ....

Politicians are masters at answering a different question to the one asked and, while she might have slipped up a little when referring to the member for Dobell, normally no one does it better than our trained-lawyer Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

She shows all the skills honed by chasing ambulances in pursuit of a dollar as she verbally steps around things like a promise not to introduce a carbon tax. And she was at it again in the Labor Party parliamentary caucus this week as she sought to play down calls for an enquiry into the ownership of Australian media.