Perhaps we’ll never know if intercepted chatter between al-Qaeda leaders - which prompted the U.S. government to close dozens of diplomatic missions in the Muslim world and to issue a worldwide travel alert - was serious or not. But mischief shouldn’t be ruled out.

Beef prices were already rising because ranchers sold off a lot of cattle during last year's dry weather.

That Rupert Murdoch's life has turned into a tabloid tale is ... well, more justice than anyone might reasonably ever wish for.

from politicoz ….

"We have a plan," Joe Hockey told Radio National's Breakfast this morning.

ASADA today said it has provided the AFL with an interim report, in accordance with its legislative provisions, on its investigation into the possible use of banned substances at the Essendon Football Club.

ASADA Chief Executive Officer, Aurora Andruska, said the investigation to date has been thorough and robust.

The Insiders: Another UN global climate warming report, AR5, may fuel Democrats’ defeat

SURE: THE UN REPORT MAY NOT BE UNDERSTOOD BY ALL, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO DO NOT WISH TO UNDERSTAND IT

By Ed Rogers, Updated: August 5, 2013

CORRECTED AUGUST 6, 2013 by GUS

Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, the chief barbarians of political capitalism, will battle it out on 7 September. On those areas they both think they can win popular support and votes, like asylum seekers, they will try to outbid each other in cruelty.

The failure of Keynesianism to address the collapse in profit rates across the developed world in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw neoliberalism become the dominant ideology and practice of economic policy of the one percent in those countries, with Pinochet, Thatcher, Reagan and Hawke leading the way. This is as true of tax as any other area of policy and practice.