Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he is prepared to "step up to the plate" and increase the number of refugees Australia accepts from war-torn Syria, but within the current humanitarian intake.

Our world is a funny place and we try to make as much sense of it as there is no sense in it... But we try and try and try... Eventually we have to decide on what makes "our" world tick. We are necessitating the unnecessary beyond that of survival.

And some people do it with the news of god... rather than the news of the day...

Australia is leading the world in commemorative spending for World War 1 with $8889 allocated for each digger killed in the Great War compared to just $109 per British casualty and a mere $2 for each dead German soldier.

from Crikey

from Crikey

Treasurer Joe Hockey says the economy's fundamentals are strong even though the national accounts figures released yesterday show that Australia's economy is growing slower than Greece's, at just 0.2 per cent. But Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen told AM this morning that it's 'pathetic' for Mr Hockey to compare Australia with Brazil and Canada as the only countries doing worse than us. He said the current rate of growth would not improve the jobless rate.

Small business lobbyists fear the Abbott government has pushed controversial competition law reforms “out into the never never” because it could not resolve deep divisions within its cabinet or stare down “the big end of town”.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has lashed out at Fairfax Media for leading what he calls a "jihad" against the Government.

Australia’s isolation from its western (white) allies has bestowed on the Australian people a deep insecurity that long ago metastasised into a permanent siege mentality - the belief that “uncivilised” hordes from the Asian continent will invade, conquer, and colonise the Australian mainland the same way the British usurped indigenous Australians 227 years ago.

And these idiots had to pay for the transportation...

The Federal Government says the cancelled police operation in Melbourne involving border force officers had nothing to do with the Immigration Minister, but Labor is calling for him to give a full explanation.