The NSW government has signed the death warrant of a tiny NSW town, but its residents aren't going quietly. Thom Mitchell reports. 

Broad target of ‘al-Qaida compounds’ suggests 2013 policy change by Obama – requiring ‘near certainty’ that suspect is present – has not been implemented.

Does the FBI manifest fidelity, bravery and integrity, or does it cut constitutional corners in order to incriminate? Can the FBI cut the cable television lines to your house and then show up pretending to be the cable guy and install listening devices? Can FBI agents and technicians testify falsely and cause the innocent to be convicted, incarcerated and, in some cases, executed?

Australia faces a battle to maintain living standards that have become the envy of workers all over the world, a think tank has warned.

Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments... Sets the world in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms of religion; with decayed and degraded system of government; with the silliness and emptiness, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps than any other individual that ever wrote.

The senior management of Australia’s leading Banks went before the Australian Senate on Tuesday to answer questions regarding widespread fraud in their Superannuation / Wealth Management departments. Last year alone almost $80 million was paid to victims of the banks frauds. What was obvious at the senate hearing is the contempt the banks still have for Australian Laws, the Senate and their customers.

from Crikey …..

authoritarianism, not terrorists, killed Charlie Hebdo ….

With the gaggle of GOP 2016 presidential contenders growing, the Republican wannabes have largely refrained from assailing one another and have instead focused their wrath on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. But now Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has launched one of the first R-on-R attacks, and he has done so regarding an issue of primal importance to the Republican voting base: guns.

Bjørn Lomborg is a well-known personality in the environmental debate. He is the author of several books which, due to their copious lists of notes and references, appear very technical and scientific and therefore trustworthy. Unfortunately, those reading his books or listening to his lectures or seeing his film are rarely aware that the facts and statements presented by Lomborg are often not reliable.

from Crikey ….

One hundred years ago this month – April 1915 – the Allies and Germany were stalemated on the Western Front. Winston Churchill, the young, ambitious First Lord of the British Admiralty proposed a scheme first advanced by France’s prime minister, Aristide Briand.