What is rent? You don't make it past the elementary economics class unless you know that's a trick question. In economics there are two kinds of rent: common or garden rent and ''economic rent''.

from mike carlton ….

Hate to say I told you so, etc, but the crystal ball gazing in my first column for this year is already coming good.

A French organic winemaker could face a prison sentence and a hefty fine after refusing to spray his vines with pesticide.

Two doves — released by the Pope in a call for peace in Ukraine — have been attacked by two larger birds, in what many interpreted as an ominous sign for the country.

from civil liberties australia …..

Aussies hate government surveillance 

Before our eyes, day by day, Scott Morrison becomes the hollow man. His face tightens and twists, his eyes are dead, and his words strangled with jargon.

After some rummaging inside my pigeon loft that I cleaned thoroughly with a large serve of red ned and some cheap shoe polish, I have arrived at the startling conclusion that it could have been Martin Ferguson who fed the bullshit about the "coward" incident to the member of Batman, David Feeney.

An eyewitness account from last week's 15th Frances Folk Gathering:

Witching Hour at Frances, all was going well

till a bunch of new arrivals started raising hell

banging a tent together in the middle of the night

then yelling at each other until the dawn's first light

from Crikey

When governments drape a flag over their secrets, we need whistleblowers

Qantas this morning reported a $252 million half-year loss and announced it would cut 5000 jobs as part of an overall plan to reduce costs by $2 billion over 3 years.

The results come as the government weighs up assistance measures for the struggling airline.

According to a February 25 article in the business section of The Washington Post (WP), a senate report has found that the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse knowingly enabled and assisted wealthy Americans in avoiding paying US taxes on billions of dollars in income for many years.

Like all the best hoaxes, there was a serious point to be made. Three MIT graduate students wanted to expose how dodgy scientific conferences pestered researchers for papers, and accepted any old rubbish sent in, knowing that academics would stump up the hefty, till-ringing registration fees.