GREENWICH, Conn.

The Dow Jones and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes reached record highs on Thursday, having completely erased the losses since the stock market’s last peak, in 2007. But instead of cheering, we should be very afraid.

My grandfather had a fridge, less modern than the one depicted above (an Electro Lux from around 1928)... Grand dad's was a Frigidaire... The machine never gave up. Bought around 1923 — grand dad was a průkopník in regard to new stuff — it only had days-off when it caked up. It was still going strong, never repaired nor re-gased, when grandpa died 40 years later. Defrosting a fridge then was a major 24 hour operation but one has to know that as the fridge caked-up with ice, the inside of the fridge was less cold... This was a contradiction, the same conundrum that is happening in Antarctica... 

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.

This morning of Easter, when all the punters are at church punting on the existence of a resurrected god, The Sunday Telegraph has a pious article on how we should let the son be... Yes it's not about the resurrection of the son of god but that of Robbie Waterhouse, Tom, the son of Gai...

The Pollies and the personalities take a serve from Gai for trying to stop her son blurring the lines between gambling and commenting on games shown on TV... I ask you what's a little flutter? 

Mike Carlton gets it wrong again...

People might see this cartoon as going too far... But it's not... My apologies to the girls and the dog, though. But they gave us an irresistible line... a line impossible to ignore in the original meaning of the word...

Meanwhile if you want a bit of fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvMeT2GC14

Queen signs; heavenly quartet plays aloft ….