Sarah Palin made a grand entrance at the Rolling Thunder biker rally on Sunday, wearing a black Harley-Davidson helmet and visibly enjoying herself as a crush of reporters and bikers swarmed her motorcycle.

Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, was joined by her husband, Todd, who was wearing a matching helmet, and her daughters, Bristol and Piper. Their arrival at the Pentagon North parking lot turned the lazy Sunday morning into a celebrity affair.

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce has criticised the appearance of actress Cate Blanchett in an advertising campaign urging Australians to "Say Yes" to a tax on carbon.

The advertisement, which also features actor Michael Caton and begins on television tonight, is funded by a coalition of unions and green groups.

Senator Joyce says highly paid actors like Blanchett need to understand many people will be hit hard by the carbon tax.

The Turanor PlanetSolar, the world's largest solar boat, will berth at Brisbane's Riverside Centre pontoon near Eagle Street tomorrow.

The 31-metre Turanor PlanetSolar.

It will be the first Australian stop on its quest to become the first entirely solar-powered vessel to circumnavigate the world.

The $16.7 million yacht, which has been compared to Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, relies on the force of the sun and its extremely powerful batteries.

The multi-hull catamaran, which measures 31 metres by 15 metres, is fitted with 38,000 high-efficiency solar cells.

Page 21 of the Daily Telegraph, Sydney — a Murdoch paper... 21 may 2011

TONY ABBOTT has clashed with his senior colleague Nick Minchin over the Coalition's decision to oppose an excise increase on alternative fuels, saying he will always put pragmatic politics ahead of ''policy purity''.

The pair locked horns in an exchange during which Senator Minchin suggested the Coalition was guilty of not supporting good policy and of being financially irresponsible for opposing a $518 million measure without suggesting alternative savings.

 


We wanted to pass on this message from Mark, a GetUp member and local farmer on the Murray Darling.

Dear Members of GetUp,

My name is Mark Etheridge and along with my partner Mog and our daughters Clancy and Lily, we run a 50,000 hectare certified organic farm near Wilcannia in the Murray Darling Basin.

Over time, we have seen a steady decline in the quality of the water. In the past 15 years we have experienced 13 algal blooms, high salinity and many cease to flow events. These events are getting more and more frequent threatening our farm, and the farms of many others.

picture by Gus

We have the choice of burning all the oil left and hacking down all the remaining rainforests - or saving humanity

from Crikey .....

Pollies grumble at writers' fest: 'good govt and ALP are strangers'

Margot Saville writes:

from Crikey .....

A fascinating, and depressing, graph popped up in The Economist this week ...

It got us thinking. If every Australian over 17 loses an average of $1300 a year on gambling - that's about $22 billion for the whole country each year - how does this compare with the money we actually spend on tangible things? And how does it compare to the money that we could spend on important or valuable things?

OK, so here's what President Barack Obama should say today about the Middle East. We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel.

Americans will force the Israelis - and the European Union - to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold all future funding for Israel unless it ends, totally and unconditionally, its building of colonies on Arab land that does not belong to it.

Out of all the various groups of asylum seekers in Australia, why are asylum seekers arriving by boat being persecuted by the Australian Government?

Why is Prime Minister Julia Gillard being so vindictive to desperate people arriving by boat on our shores? Why does she allow the erratic Tony Abbott and his attack dog, Scott Morrison, to set the boat arrival agenda? They don't make an issue of refugees arriving by aircraft, however those arriving by boat receive their racist bile in bucket loads.