GREENWICH, Conn.

The Dow Jones and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes reached record highs on Thursday, having completely erased the losses since the stock market’s last peak, in 2007. But instead of cheering, we should be very afraid.

My grandfather had a fridge, less modern than the one depicted above (an Electro Lux from around 1928)... Grand dad's was a Frigidaire... The machine never gave up. Bought around 1923 — grand dad was a průkopník in regard to new stuff — it only had days-off when it caked up. It was still going strong, never repaired nor re-gased, when grandpa died 40 years later. Defrosting a fridge then was a major 24 hour operation but one has to know that as the fridge caked-up with ice, the inside of the fridge was less cold... This was a contradiction, the same conundrum that is happening in Antarctica... 

This morning of Easter, when all the punters are at church punting on the existence of a resurrected god, The Sunday Telegraph has a pious article on how we should let the son be... Yes it's not about the resurrection of the son of god but that of Robbie Waterhouse, Tom, the son of Gai...

The Pollies and the personalities take a serve from Gai for trying to stop her son blurring the lines between gambling and commenting on games shown on TV... I ask you what's a little flutter? 

Mike Carlton gets it wrong again...

People might see this cartoon as going too far... But it's not... My apologies to the girls and the dog, though. But they gave us an irresistible line... a line impossible to ignore in the original meaning of the word...

Meanwhile if you want a bit of fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvMeT2GC14

A former welfare minister has delivered a dramatic appeal to landlords to take direct action against the “bedroom tax” by knocking down walls or bricking up windows in protest against housing benefit cuts.

I know the 13.8 billion year-old universe is divided along many fault lines and one of these chasms regards Julia...

There are the Julia haters and the Julia "lovers"... Even this site, YourDemocracy, is divided... John does not like Julia Gillard one bit, while Gus is a supporter... 

Why it is important to tally the number of days above a certain temperature compared with similar period in past records...

As most of the mainstream media uses epithet like "disaster", "Labor's shrivelled bacon", "chicken Kev", "catastrophe" and even a "%$&(#@ that" to describe Julia staying in the PM chair — and of course blames Julia and Swan for the "debacle" (it's not a debacle — it was actually lancing a big boil that has been festering in the Labor Party), I for one could not be happier... Having been through many changes of fragile government in Europe, I can see a Shakespearian drama/comedy being climaxed... and there will be a clever twist at the end... Julia wins the election...

JERUSALEM — President Obama made an impassioned appeal Thursday for renewed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, urging each side to compromise on key issues so as to sideline extremists who “thrive on conflict.”