Pulitzer-winning author and former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has a revolutionary worldview. In the video below, his recent "Endgame Strategy" piece for AdBusters is read aloud by George Atherton.

His conclusions are chilling, but not entirely hopeless.

After a year as Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has failed to establish any sort of positive relationship with the Australian people, according to the Labor Party's own research.

Gillard is seen as cold and untrustworthy, still haunted by the way she took the job by deposing the man to whom she had endlessly pledged loyalty, Kevin Rudd.

By overthrowing Rudd, she created an emotional starting point for public assessment. This was compounded by her broken promise - "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" - to entrench a dominant image of dishonesty.

fatso

Millions of pounds raised by the sale of a little-known Picasso masterpiece are to fund medical research into obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

The portrait of the artist's lover, Marie-Therese Walter, fetched £13.5m when it went under the hammer on Tuesday at Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art auction in London.

The 1935 work, "Jeune fille endormie", was given to the University of Sydney last year by an anonymous US donor on the condition that it be sold to support scientific research at the university.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/22/picasso-sold-auction

On the news tonight, Barnaby was seen defending his denialist stance of global warming by referring to little birds breathing and exhaling CO2, as if this process was comparable to our industrial CO2 and as unimportant... And he was not joking about it... He was SERIOUS. In what is obviously his midget mind, this represented the extend of his scientific understanding of the subject — and possibly that of all sciences.

And we elect these idiots...

As a sort of "grand finale" to a presentation at a conference earlier this month in Los Angeles, climate "sceptic" Lord Christopher Monckton displayed on the giant conference screen a large Nazi swastika next to a quote from Adolf Hitler.

A few seconds later came another quote, next to another large swastika – an emblem still offensive to most people seven decades after the end of WWII. The quote this time was from Australia's climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut, which suggested that "on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream science is right" on human-caused climate change.

doing the email rounds...

JOHN Howard should have stood down as Liberal leader before losing government and his seat at the 2007 poll, former Liberal Senate leader Nick Minchin has declared in his farewell speech to parliament.

Senator Minchin used his valedictory today to list his failures, not just relive successes.

He admitted his regret at not having "the courage of my conservative convictions concerning my serious reservations at the time about the US plans for the invasion of Iraq."

He also expressed his disappointment at his inability to privatise Snowy Hydro and Medibank Private during his time as finance minister.

Tony Abbott has used Question Time to accuse the Government of abandoning democracy over its handling of the carbon tax, as criticism mounts over his proposal for a plebiscite on the issue.

The Opposition Leader demanded to know why Prime Minister Julia Gillard had promised there would no carbon price until a consensus of the people had been reached.

"How can she claim such a consensus exists when she refuses to put it to the people, preferably at an election, but if not at a plebiscite?" he said.

But Ms Gillard labelled the plebiscite proposal a "stunt".

 From the ABC Drum: Simon Tatz is the director of communications for the Mental Health Council of Australia

Quote:

The Gillard government is grappling with a United Nations inquiry into its alleged failure to protect David Hicks's human rights. But it has indicated to his supporters that it accepts the United States' denial of his torture and warned the proceeds of his book may be confiscated.

A confidential, 107-page document submitted to the UN on Hicks's behalf by the Sydney barrister Ben Saul details alleged breaches of international law by the US and Australian governments, including a failure to protect his right to a fair trial and freedom from torture.

US President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner made a winning team on the golf course - with federal budget discussion likely to have taken place between the shots.

They teamed up to beat Vice-President Joe Biden and Ohio's Republican Governor John Kasich at a military base outside Washington DC.

The game was touted as an opportunity to socialise and discuss the budget.

Republicans want spending cuts with the deficit poised to hit $1.4tr (£865bn).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13813691

After careful thought, I have decided, like the Prime Minister, that I have no time in my busy schedule to meet Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, aka His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

This may be my loss. When Tony Abbott saw the bouncy bonze on Tuesday he announced that their meeting had been "good and constructive". He had gained "an added consciousness of the importance of the spiritual dimension to life", he said, without a hint of irony.

Kevin Rudd has a two-to-one lead as preferred Labor leader over Prime Minister Julia Gillard, according to a new poll.

The latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows the coalition leading Labor by 59 to 41 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, worse than polling when Mr Rudd was overthrown as leader a year ago.

The poll, published in Fairfax newspapers on Saturday, also had Opposition Leader Tony Abbott tying with Ms Gillard for the first time as preferred prime minister, with both on 46 per cent.

Ms Gillard's approval rating has dropped by six percentage points to 37 per cent, her lowest level since becoming prime minister.