picture by Gus Leonisky

Queensland is the fourth state in four years to dismiss a Labor government. Those states contain 87 per cent of Australia's population. And the federal Labor government lost its majority in the same span. Could there be a message?

By SCOTT SHANE

Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant on Saturday after 20 months on a waiting list, and was recovering in a Virginia hospital, a statement from his office said.

Mr. Cheney, 71, who has suffered five heart attacks and was in end-stage heart failure, was recovering in the intensive care unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va.

As for the adversarial media—forget it. This is one of Greenwald’s pet peeves, a theme that pervades his widely read column for Salon as well as this book: the coziness of the mainstream media and the power elite, with the former acting as a journalistic Praetorian Guard for the perks and privileges of the political class.

In the race to the bottom, someone comes out on top

People wearing hooded sweatshirts are often going to be perceived as a menace, Rivera said.

Another Taser-related death in Australia has renewed debate about the powerful weapon and whether it is a safe option for police use.

A STRUGGLING Sydney golf club with a declining membership is considering joining forces with a cemetery that is overflowing.

The reference to the lands policy was the recent decision against ringfencing prime agricultural land from mining while forcing miners to face scientific panels to gain approval to mine such areas.

from Robert Fisk...

I'm getting a bit tired of the "deranged" soldier story. It was predictable, of course. The 38-year-old staff sergeant who massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, near Kandahar this week had no sooner returned to base than the defence experts and the think-tank boys and girls announced that he was "deranged". Not an evil, wicked, mindless terrorist – which he would be, of course, if he had been an Afghan, especially a Taliban – but merely a guy who went crazy.

Queensland businessman Clive Palmer has accused green groups of being funded by America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

picture by Gus Leonisky...

From Crabb

An experiment to repeat a test of the speed of subatomic particles known as neutrinos has found that they do not travel faster than light.

Results announced in September suggested that neutrinos can exceed light speed, but were met with scepticism as that would upend Einstein's theory of relativity.

A test run by a different group at the same laboratory has now clocked them travelling at precisely light speed.

The results have been posted online.

For generations the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a wonder — the world’s knowledge on a single bookshelf. Now the touch of a finger can bring even more information instantaneously. That’s why Britannica will no longer be publishing a print edition. But what will be lost beside 129 pounds of book? Can you find that same sense of wonder online?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/14/britannica-define-outdated/