If Saint Patrick's Day was designed to bring out the blarney, then Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd last night laid it on thick.

For the second year, Mr Abbott and Mr Rudd spoke at a Brisbane Saint Patrick's eve dinner, a good-humoured affair where the political anecdotes were taken with a pinch of salt - or a pint of guinness.

In his own words, Mr Abbott said he was often described as the love child of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop.

"They assure me that it was an immaculate conception," Mr Abbott said.

The rest - all of it - the carrier battle groups, the scores of air wings, the dozens of bases, the tens of thousands of tanks, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers stationed all over the world - it's really all about projecting power - that is, about war - on others. Who have done nothing to us, other than resist American hegemony, or otherwise behave uncooperatively. All for the sake of the profits of the military industrial cartel.

A spike in radiation levels at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has forced workers to suspend their operation, a government spokesman says.

He was speaking after smoke was seen rising from reactor three. Earlier, a blaze struck reactor four for the second time in two days.

Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which killed thousands, damaged the plant's cooling functions.

The site has also been hit by four explosions, triggering radiation leaks.

RUBY HAMAD: Hi. Prime Minister, in your gushing speech to US Congress last week, you tearfully proclaimed that America "can do anything!" Millions of Australians cringed. In the year 2011, can we really not have a relationship with the United States without paying lip service to the myth of American exceptionalism?

Time was running out for Libya's revolution last night as Muammar Gaddafi's forces routed rebels in the east of the country, driving them into retreat from the town of Brega under a rain of rockets and shells, and opening up the road to the principal opposition stronghold, Benghazi.

Julia Gillard has taken a double whammy in the latest poll.

The Prime Minister's approval rating has reached its lowest point, apparently over her carbon tax plan. And she is losing to Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader.

Today's Herald-Nielsen poll confirms that the Labor Party remains near its historic low point among voters and would decisively lose an election held today.

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL has rebuffed the head of the Bureau of Meteorology, who had said Australia's highest-ranking Catholic was ''misled'' in his views on global warming.

Dr Greg Ayers told a Senate estimates hearing last month that the Archbishop of Sydney's argument against human-induced climate change was based heavily on a book by Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth - Global Warming: The Missing Science, which had been discredited by members of the scientific community.

''The contents of the book are simply not scientific. I am concerned that the cardinal has been misled [by its contents],'' the bureau director said.

The new order in Federal Parliament is on the verge of breaking down, with MPs warning they are overworked, at risk of drug and alcohol dependency and are being held hostage by the demands of the independents.

The Sun-Herald has learnt of a strong push by Labor and Coalition MPs to scrap parts of the deal on parliamentary reform negotiated by the independents - Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor, Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter - in the hung Parliament.

from Crikey .....

Tasmania's political alliance won't be pulped - but the people smell a con

From Hobart, political journalist Bruce Montgomery writes:

from Crikey .....

Democratic reform needs to spread to the Pacific region

Ged Kearney, president of the ACTU, writes:

Senior Liberal Nick Minchin says the globe is more likely to be cooling than warming and has slammed the Government's key climate adviser, Ross Garnaut, as "on the Government's payroll".

Amid fierce debate about the Government's carbon tax plan, Professor Garnaut yesterday warned the scientific case for climate change had strengthened the position that the Earth is warming and that human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.

Senator Minchin - who led the Liberal Party's move to dump leader Malcolm Turnbull over his support for action over climate change - says Professor Garnaut, an economist, "knows nothing about the climate".

Opponents of the huge Barangaroo project would have won their case seeking to stop the development if the Planning Minister Tony Kelly had not changed the law just before the judgment was brought down.

In a scathing decision in the Land and Environment Court today, Justice Peter Biscoe dismissed the case brought by Australians for Sustainable Development but said they ''would have achieved success'' but for the minister's amendment last week.

A generation ago, irresponsible pundits inflamed anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment, claiming that the election of then Senator John F Kennedy to the presidency would put the White House under the control of Rome. Today, where Muslims are concerned, it seems there's no claim too absurd, no charge too baseless to command the full attention of certain public officials and even the investigatory powers of Congress. Representative Peter King should know better.