In boldly defending his government’s decision to commence direct arms shipments to the Kurdish regional government in Erbil, without a request from the government of Iraq or the UN, Prime Minister Tony Abbott proclaimed that Australia would not leave the Iraqi people to the mercy of the Islamic State ‘death cult’.

Israel announced on Sunday a land appropriation in the occupied West Bank that an anti-settlement group termed the biggest in 30 years, drawing Palestinian condemnation and a U.S. rebuke.

So, what has the government actually done,” asked News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt in early August, “to reassure the party faithful that, yes, this is a Liberal government?”

Interviews with senior Labor Party figures, both past and present, published in the new book Triumph and Demise by the Australian newspaper’s leading political journalist Paul Kelly, cast a further revealing light on the circumstances surrounding the June 23-24, 2010 coup that ousted Labor leader Kevin Rudd as prime minister and installed Julia Gillard.

With the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine turning a local civil war into a U.S. confrontation with Russia, U.S. intelligence veterans urge President Obama to release what evidence he has about the tragedy and silence the hyperbole.

Imagine this: A Muslim zealot hands out offensive brochures in a public school. The material tells impressionable children that girls who do not cover themselves invite sexual assault by tempting men (who are famously weak of flesh - it's the way God made them).

The independent Parliamentary Budget Office has called into question claims health spending is spiralling out of control, noting government spending is projected to grow in line with the economy over the next decade and that health will account for only a small amount to that growth.

* from politicoz ….

“I think we as Australia have to continue to step up to the plate to meet our world objectives, to do the right thing by the peoples of the world & to stand up for our Western values & I think our values & the American values align completely. I think the threat posed by the Islamic State is to all civilised peoples, not just us of white Anglo-Saxon backgrounds.”

from Crikey ….

'No credible threat' from the virus of radicalisation

By Bill Rowlings, CEO of Civil Liberties Australia