http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13058818

Clubs Australia says it is "outraged" at suggestions it may be involved in a death threat against independent MP Andrew Wilkie.

Mr Wilkie has claimed the gaming industry is mounting a smear campaign against him because of his calls for tougher laws to target poker machines and problem gambling.

The Tasmanian independent also says there has been an attempt to blackmail him with supposed "compromising photos", and threats to trawl through his past as an Army cadet at Duntroon.

"In the past two days I've received a death threat, been threatened with the existence of compromising photos, and am having my past as a cadet at Duntroon nearly 30 years ago trawled over,'' he said.

HUNTING in 29 national parks, relaxation of gun licensing laws and shooting as a school sport: these are some of the demands the Premier is about to be confronted with by the Shooters and Fishers Party, which now shares the balance of power in the NSW upper house.

As the make-up of the Legislative Council was decided yesterday, documents obtained by the Herald reveal the extent and cost of the shopping list likely to be presented to Barry O'Farrell as he tries to negotiate his legislation through the new Parliament.

US President Barack Obama has said he enjoys golf in large part because a game is the only way he can escape outdoors for hours at a time.

He said he misses the trappings of ordinary life - weekend lie-ins, trips to the market and walks in the park.

"I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by," he told Hearst newspapers. "I miss that."

Mr Obama's security bubble precludes much privacy and spontaneity. He recently announced a re-election bid.

"I miss being anonymous," he told Hearst Magazines' publishers and editors at the White House.

http://www.sbs.com.au/documentary/program/thewaryoudontsee

The Federal Opposition says the proposed regulations that will underpin national workplace safety laws are unworkable.

The Government has been moving to implement uniform laws across the country.

The Opposition supports the proposals but its spokesman on Employment and Workplace Relations, Eric Abetz, says business is worried about the complexity of the regulations.

WASHINGTON — The hard-fought budget compromise late Friday that narrowly averted a government shutdown calls for increasing Pentagon spending while imposing significant cuts on a wide range of domestic federal programs.

In the LRB, David Runciman provides some telling insights in a review of recent books about the “off-shoring” of the world economy into tax havens, where the hyper-elite hide their money from the taxes and regulations that ordinary citizens are subject to. The review also deals with the political machinations involved in this corrosive process, which lies behind much of our dysfunctions and discontents. You should read the whole article, which provides rich historical context, but are some excerpts, in medias res:

picture by Gus...

from Jeremy Buckingham

As I have said before, if Kevin was so keen on the ETS he would have carried on with it. He sort of blame others in his party for his decision to abandon it... Strangely Kev does not point the finger at Tony the Little Shit who sunk his baby.

We all know that Tony has no morals — well I mean proper human ethics and understandings of the mechanics of the earth, the only morals that count in my book...  The rest is just the management of the illusion of sin.

So the joke begins like this: An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room. What’s the punch line? They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science.

But the joke actually ended up being on the Republicans, when one of the two actual scientists they invited to testify went off script.