One of the greatest conceits of the modern journalist may be the notion that she, or he, has a better idea of what is in the Australian national security interest or the public interest than the government of the day, the politicians of the day, or even the permanent public administration, including the military and security establishment.

Almost a third of Australia's largest companies are paying less than 10¢ in the dollar in corporate tax, according to a report that exposes a gaping hole in government revenues over the past decade.

As Australia prepares to host world leaders at the G20 summit in Brisbane in November, where a global assault on tax avoidance will be a key topic of discussion, the report found 84 per cent of Australia's top 200 stockmarket-listed companies pay less than the 30 per cent company tax rate.

One might think that by now even Americans would have caught on to the constant stream of false alarms that Washington sounds in order to deceive the people into supporting its hidden agendas.

If you can attend an Anzac Day ceremony and hear the Turkish ambassador read the famous words of Turkish president Ataturk without an enormous lump in your throat, my bet is you are a very rare Australian.

With the freedom lovers restricting freedom even further to defend freedom, (oh, and don’t forget security), I am reminded of this from Peter Arnett about Bến Tre city in Vietnam on 7 February 1968.

He wrote that a US army commander said:

Tickets prices for the Rugby League Grand Final

Grand Final Ticket Prices

from crikey ….

Targeting of Muslims risks the exact terror threat we claim to oppose ….

In this short little presentation Prof. Mark Blyth of the Watson Institute for International Studies explains why austerity (that is, increasing taxes and slashing public spending on vital services, while of course spending increasing amounts of money on shoring up our deadbeat financial system) is not only not common sense, it is nonsense - and a dangerous one at that.