from Crikey .....

On farming v mining, Abbott clear on the politics but not so clear on a policy

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has sought to clarify his comments about farmers having the right to refuse coal seam gas miners access to their land, now saying it is a matter for the states.

Under law, minerals on private property are owned by the Crown and landholders are required to allow mining companies access for exploration or mining. The states administer the laws and glean royalties from mining.

In a radio interview on Friday Mr Abbott said: "If you don't want something to happen on your land, you ought to have a right to say no."

The 2012 Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa, Thursday night was exciting. Really.

Sure, it was a civil discussion between conservatives in nice-looking outfits. And it took place in the most midwestern of midwestern states – Iowans' insistence on maintaining an air of middle-class normalcy is almost fanatical. Still, the two hour-long affair sparkled, thanks to the event's co-host Fox News. If bad news is good news for television ("it bleeds, it leads"), however, then this bit of good news about Fox's performance is sure to be bad news for everyone – including the media organisation itself.

The climate sceptics can finally get excited about the 2012 election: Rick Perry, their candidate of choice, is about to officially throw his hat in the ring.

Perry calls global warming "all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight." Unlike many of the other GOP presidential candidates, he hasn't expressed concern about climate change in the past, so he won't have to do any back-pedaling. Notorious climate denier Marc Morano is a big fan: "Based on climate views alone, anyone who is holding their nose voting for Mitt Romney because there's no other viable candidate will now rejoice to have an option with Rick Perry."

The Bullingdon is an ancient dining club for undergraduate toffs at Oxford, all male, by invitation only. You need pots of money to join, partly to fork out for the uniform of white tie'n'tails with trimmings, but mostly to pay for the property damage wrought at the club's notorious orgies of drinking and destruction.

The British Prime Minister, David William Donald Cameron (Eton, Brasenose), his Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Gideon Oliver Osborne (St Paul's, Magdalen, and heir to a baronetcy), and the Tory mayor of London, the blond, bicycling and batty Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Eton, Balliol), were all Bullingdon chaps in the '80s.

Eighty-one congressmen, or about 20 percent of the US House of Representatives, will visit Israel over the next three weeks during Congress's summer recess, with the first group of 26 Democrats scheduled to arrive on Monday.

The Democratic delegation will be followed by two Republican ones, bringing a total of 55 Republicans.

Most of the representatives are freshmen congressmen, with 47 - or fully half of the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010 - making the trip.

For many of them, this will be their first trip to Israel.

stuffed...

Rick Perry, one of the leading Republican contenders for the 2012 White House race, is under fire after organising a huge Christian evangelical rally at a football stadium in Houston, Texas.

Although he has not yet formally declared his intention to stand, Perry is in second place in some polls behind front-runner Mitt Romney. But critics say he is risking his reputation on Saturday's planned day of prayer and fasting that he has declared in response to the economic and moral crisis facing the country.

Can a half-hour chat about God really warp children's minds? Listening to Australia's increasingly irate secularists, you could be forgiven for thinking so.

They have upped the ante in their war against ''special religious instruction'' in public schools, depicting it as the modern-day equivalent of a Christian crusade arriving on horseback to convert young Aussies to a lifetime of Bible-bashing. 

Critique of this rubbish follows:

This was expressed by Brendan O'Neill, a communist, an atheist (who must be getting old) in an article called: "A confident secularist society would tolerate school religion"

From Chris Floyd

So the deed is done. The "debt ceiling" crisis has been "resolved" by a further maniacal destruction of the commonweal, in a bipartisan pact that completely ignores the murderous imperial wars as the primary drain on the nation's treasury. As we noted here yesterday, the deal also sets up an unaccountable politburo (the special "Super Congress" committee) that will remove further coddling of the rich from the democratic process altogther.

God it's wonderful - really diverting in a macabre sort of way, at least if you have a diseased sense of humor and enough Padre Kino red. Which I do.

As I write the world's only delusional superpower, perennially in love with itself, navel-gazing as narcissistically as ever, ignorant, self-indulgent, gurbling like an insane relative in the attic and fondling electro-trinkets from Japan, is broke. Yes, we see a beautiful dive from the high board, two somersaults and a half-twist, into the Third World. And so richly deserved.