Australia’s attorney general, George Brandis, has warned of the risk posed by “trusted insiders” ranging from Judas Iscariot to the “treacherous” former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Treasurer Joe Hockey has hailed the agreement to axe the mining tax  - which will cost the budget $6.5 billion - as a "damn good deal" for the Australian people.

On hearing the news this arvo of how Tony's off to Inda to hand over our uranium, I dug up my notes here from exactly 8 years ago.  This reprint might contain useful background information for anyone keen on following what's (probably this time, maybe?) about to unfold:

When Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar and a "cast of thousands" of Australian dignitaries launched the Adelaide-Darwin in early 2004 everybody was talking about what a boon to Australian exports Mr Cheney's conquest of the Australian desert would be.  Of course, nobody was talking about uranium at the time....

Well, the inevitable has happened, and we're going to see boxcars of yellowcake trundling from Adelaide to Darwin within the next few years,   Immediately following the announcement of opening of a new Australian uranium mine (at Honeymoon in South Australia's far north east

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’.

When studying global warming in depth, one has to make allowances for uncertainty, fluctuations and elasticity. One has to always question whether one is right or wrong... 

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?”

When one studies the "terms of reference" for the royal commission into the "Pink bats", one can only see it is set up for the study of failures, not that of successes. ANY BUSINESS in Australia could be submitted to the same rigmarole and come with a giant F for FAILURE... In fact the HIP was very successful despite a few set backs which HAPPEN in any industry. ON THIS LEVEL, the HIP was far more successful than most private enterprises. "This" royal commission was a waste of time and money.

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 ….