Wayne Swan is a working class legend in his own lunchtime. Just ask him. Or rather just read his John Button memorial speech.

Commentators are fairly unanimous that the Rio+20 talks have been a failure. Expectations had of course been low. And because of this most developed country leaders stayed away. In opening the summit Ban Ki-Moon admitted the draft outcome was “disappointing” due to the conflicting interests of member states. China’s Sha Zukang, the UN’s lead on the conference agreed, calling the statement “an outcome that makes nobody happy.”

from the Drum …..

Research discussed by The Drum's panel on Thursday night confirms that improvements to Australia's food supply are desperately needed if we are to reduce deaths from Australia's number one killer, heart disease.

Not only is Julia Gillard being attacked by the Opposition and the media, she is also being undermined by her own so-called supporters, says Victoria Rollison

from Crikey ….. 

Nuclear drumbeat grows as US eyes Australia

The weather and the time difference are turning the London 2012 Olympics into the doona games as Sydneysiders snuggle up in front of the TV or computer, and shun live venues offering Olympic viewing.

It’s bad enough getting beaten by Americans who just buy their gold medals by the truckload, or Russians, who can call on the exciting pharmacological resources of Vladimir Putin’s secret KGB labs, or, quelle horreur, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys who... who... who...

from Crikey ….. 

Chris Graham: Brough is back, with a record of failure

“We have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran’s leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions,” Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told an audience of about 300, including a large contingent of American donors who flew here to accompany him. “We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option.”

"What should I give up?" asks Andrew Leigh, the freshman Labor parliamentarian.

As usual with state premiers, it was all about the money. Facing debt and deficit, the Sunshine State is crying poor. Queensland, the Premier claims, "has been bankrupted - is on the way to being bankrupted - by poor and reckless financial management".

The state needs to "right size" its public finances, and if it doesn't, then it could go the way of the indebted sovereigns of the Mediterranean.

The 2012 London Olympic Games were preceded by an Opening Ceremony that controversially involved a social history of the ordinary people of England since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 18th century.  Unfortunately the Opening Ceremony considered only the several score English subjects of the English Establishment and ignored the horrendous maltreatment of hundreds of millions of other subjects of the ruthless British Empire.