Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them? 

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The Federal Government has formally revealed it will not go ahead with a promised company tax cut for big businesses.

But nor will larger companies be forced to pay a levy that was designed to help fund the Prime Minister's dumped paid parental leave scheme.

from the Monthly ….

Peter Costello’s claim to “legendary treasurer” status rests on three pillars.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, pulled no punches Monday evening when he hammered home his message against a potential 2016 presidential candidate rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. "Yesterday is over, and we are never going back," he declared in his formal announcement of his 2016 presidential bid.

A consumer advocate who was spied on by the Commonwealth Bank now faces a legal action that should send shivers down the spines of whistle-blowers around the country.

The bank is funding a defamation action filed against the advocate, Michael Fraser, by a senior executive at the bank.

It is one of history’s ironies that the Lincoln Memorial is a sacred space for the Civil Rights Movement and the site of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

from Crikey …..

How fares the War on Terror?

There was a moment on Tuesday evening – hours before the first public hearing of the Senate inquiry into corporate tax evasion – when Treasurer Joe Hockey and his advisers should have sensed a firestorm approaching.

The origins of humans (homo sapiens) makes for legends in our own minds, including denaturing life with rabid religious beliefs. Here, there is some resonance between the Abrahamic religions and the "myths" of ancient Greece and Rome, with equivalents of various legendary origins, in the region — especially in Mesopotamia, but also in Egypt. 

It's the same the whole world over, it's the same

The rich man gets the money

And the poor man gets the blame

Tony Abbott has said that only the Coalition could stem the flow of asylum seeker boats because other governments would “succumb to the cries of the human rights lawyers”.

The prime minister admitted that vessels continue to depart for Australia, saying that the government has “largely stopped the boats”, a step back from previous comments indicating they have been stopped altogether.