We're such a feeble nation that Murdoch was bound to triumph .... if he gets BSkyB, it will be a victory for monopoly capitalism.

Greens MP Adam Bandt believes Federal Parliament is running the risk of descending into farce due to the Opposition repeatedly cutting short Question Time.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott brought the session to a halt four times this week in an attempt to censure Prime Minister Julia Gillard over her proposed carbon tax.

Each day the interruption was timed so Mr Abbott's criticism of the tax was broadcast live on ABC1 television during the scheduled Question Time broadcast.

By the time Ms Gillard rose to reply, however, the ABC had switched, as scheduled, to Play School.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has persisted with his strategy to censure the Government in Question Time over its proposed introduction of a carbon tax.

The combative session saw one MP expelled, several warned and Speaker Harry Jenkins forced to his feet in frustration.

For the fourth straight day the censure motion was unsuccessful, but it allowed Mr Abbott and the Opposition to maintain its attack on the Government's carbon scheme.

Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says the Coalition will keep putting forward the motion until "the Australian people can get some answers".

http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/gitmo/

Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan says he is "appalled" after an Opposition MP compared Prime Minister Julia Gillard to embattled Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi.

As part of the heated carbon tax debate, Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella said Ms Gillard was as "deluded" as Mr Gaddafi, whose sanity has been questioned in recent days.

"If Ms Gillard believes Australians want to pay higher electricity and higher petrol prices, she is as deluded as Colonel 'my people love me' Gaddafi," she said.

The next generation of body scanners to be rolled out in airports will literally be able to see inside the human body, as security personnel gear up to trial machines that use deep penetrating radiation, the same kind hospitals use to examine internal organs and bones.

Julie Bishop: deputy opposition leader, Orientalist, tactician. The Prime Minister has accused her of being able to bend spoons with her famous glare, but her talents extend further.

During yesterday's party room meeting, Bishop urged her Coalition colleagues to adopt the battle methods of Sun Tzu, the famous military tactician and author of the ancient tome The Art of War.

''Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory,'' she told the joint party room. ''Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.''

Tony Abbott has sharpened the political choice by promising he would repeal a carbon tax. But it is a strategy with risks and costs.

It means that if the tax starts mid-next year, businesses won't know for about a year after that (assuming the Parliament runs full term) whether they have to live with the tax permanently.

Yet what business wants from politicians on both sides is certainty. With the prospect of the tax being rescinded, some businesses may delay investment decisions and the doubt could pay havoc with risk premiums.

Why is it acceptable for Australians to donate money (and receive tax deductions) to illegal settlements in the West Bank but the Australian government isn't able to openly provide aid to citizens living under the rule of Hamas and Hizbollah?

The corruption of international aid by politics.

Here's an interesting report on PressTV.

PressTV Interview on Australian aid to the Middle East

Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi, whose new piece in Rolling Stone outlines the complete lack of accountability for Wall Street crooks, tells Democracy Now!,

As politicians are asking ordinary Americans to sacrifice their education, their health, their labor rights, and their wellbeing to tackle budget deficits, some of the world's richest multinational corporations are getting away with shirking their responsibility and paying nothing. ThinkProgress has assembled a short but far from comprehensive list of these tax dodgers - corporations which have rigged the tax system to their advantage so they can reap huge profits and avoid paying taxes:

Silvio Berlusconi is an internationally renowned figure, but not for his good reputation as an upright and respectable statesman, rather as a notorious man who can be called one of the most corrupt politicians of the world in all terms.

An unflappable and defiant politician who has accumulated a collection of criminal charges for which he hasn't been held accountable so far, Berlusconi is approaching the first stages of punishment for several crimes he committed during his three terms of premiership in Italy.

An open letter to Prue McSween from Gus Leonisky

Dear Prue
It's time we had a little chat, head to head...

Prime Minister Julia Gillard endured a fiery morning on talkback radio today as she came out swinging in the political war over her plans to put a price on Australia's carbon emissions.

Yesterday Ms Gillard announced the scheme would start from July 2012 but did not say how much carbon would cost and gave no firm date for it to become a fully fledged emissions trading scheme.

The news prompted a fierce response from the Opposition, with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott branding the carbon price "a historic betrayal" which looks like a "conspiracy of the Parliament against the people".