Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott traded bitter blows on health policy as the last Question Time until May descended into chaos.

Six MPs were ejected as debate raged between the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader over which side had better health credentials.

Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott have now agreed to go head to head on the issue at the National Press Club next Tuesday.

The stoush started when the Government attempted to ambush Mr Abbott by suspending Question Time in order to make Mr Abbott outline whether or not he would support Labor's hospital reform plans.

from Crikey .....

Tas election: scared Labor shoots itself in the foot with robocalls

From Tasmania, freelance journalist Bruce Montgomery writes:

TASMANIAN ELECTION

There are two definitions of anti-Semitism in its Jewish context. One was born in real history and represents a truth. The other is part and parcel of Zionist mythology and was invented for the purpose of blackmailing non-Jewish Europeans and North Americans into refraining from criticising Israel or, to be more precise, staying silent when its leaders resort to state terrorism and demonstrate in many ways their absolute contempt for international law.

Anti-Semitism properly and honestly defined is prejudice against and loathing and even hatred of Jews, all Jews everywhere, just because they are Jews.

from Crikey .....

Gay, Gunns and logging - just what nobody wanted to talk about

Bob Burton from The Tasmanian Times writes:

'Stop and search' is racial profiling by any other name

Criminal law and human rights barrister Greg Barns writes:

Steve Fielding, the Family First senator and creationist identified as more stupid than an earthworm by visiting English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, appears to have taken the classification literally and gone underground.

For days Canberra's ABC radio afternoon shift announcer Genevieve Jacobs had spruiked the senator's appearance on her bravely oxymoronic ''Pollies Without Politics'' segment.

A Liberal Senator has accused the Federal Government of turning the CSIRO into a political puppet on the issue of climate change.

Victorian Senator Julian McGauran made the comments following the release of a CSIRO report which concluded that climate change is affecting Australia and humans are contributing to it.

Senator McGauran says the organisation has been stripped of its independence and is doing the bidding of the Minister for Science, Kim Carr.

"Minister Carr without doubt has wandered through the CSIRO offices, intimidating the scientists and the executive to do as they're told," he said.

Bernie Madoff, the New York Ponzi scheme master who is now in jail, is generally said to be the biggest financial criminal in the history of the US.

But at an estimated $US60 billion or so, his con is insignificant compared to the $US138 billion con pulled by Lehman Brothers and some of its senior managers, in the nine months from the last quarter of 2007 to the June quarter of 2008.

The rise of a new conservative grass roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass roots, the evangelical Christian right.

...

The image above (Gus picture of a spider eating a fly that the spider has wrapped up in a cocoon) is representative of how we've manipulated our nature to believe and how we behave. We have augmented our natural needs of consumption into an art form, in which we cannibalise our environment by being too successful with bullshit — a concept allowed to be by our pinch of too much faith...

Citibank's "tough patooties" customer service charter

Adam Schwab writes:

from Crikey .....

Taxing at double time to pay for Abbott's baby bonus

Glenn Dyer writes:

February 13 marks the two-year anniversary of the Australian government's historic apology to its indigenous population.

Israel's decision to approve 1,600 new homes in an ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighbourhood is undermining Middle East peace talks, US Vice President Joe Biden said in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, the Interior Ministry approved the building of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, with a ministry official saying the plan will expand the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighbourhood to the east & to the south.