JULIA Gillard's carbon tax budget bribe has backfired spectacularly, with the majority of voters believing they will be worse off despite thousands of dollars a year in extra handouts and tax cuts.

from Crikey ….

Coles aren't missing many in bombing out their new Flybuys cards to every man, woman and child. But just how they're getting the information is an interesting question. One mum offers some interesting clues:

from the Drum …..

Can somebody tell me what happened? Can someone explain how in the space of just a decade our public discussion has been hijacked by the ignorant and the bigoted and their boosters in the mass media?

Let’s imagine this scene: eleven Palestinian youngsters under the age of 18 demonstrating with Palestinian flags and posters at the north-west entrance of the Ariel settlement, demanding that the old road which leads to Salfit be reopened. Let’s assume that these youngsters aren’t attacked by the Ariel residents. After all, this is not a hotheaded settlement, its zealotry is limited to land fever.

Sibel Edmonds' new book, Classified Woman, is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence.

The United States is making a gigantic investment in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, billed by its advocates as the next - by their count the fifth - generation of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat aircraft.

... And finally, we come to the document's almost Biblical central switcheroo, in which Mr Swan converted billions of company-tax-cut dollars into loaves and fishes for the masses.

The ABC's 7.30 program has found bitter factional in-fighting was triggered by the purported move by Mr Costello, who demanded a young MP step aside to accommodate him.

Secret CIA video tapes of the waterboarding of Osama Bin Laden's suspected jihadist travel arranger Abu Zubaydah show him vomiting and screaming, the BBC has learned.

Kelly Thomas repeatedly apologized to Fullerton police officers, saying he was "sorry" as they continued to pummel him with their fists and batons, a dramatic video of the July 5 beating of the homeless man reveals.

The grainy black-and-white video, shown Monday on the first day of a preliminary hearing for two Fullerton police officers charged in the case, shows a shirtless Thomas being repeatedly struck.

Hillary Clinton Admits the US Government Created al-Qaeda