When the young and ambitious Richard Nixon was accused of accepting bribes, he wheeled out a trump card: a dog named Checkers, which he said was just another gift from a constituent.

from politicoz ….

When 2GB suspended advertising from Alan Jones' show, its flagship program, it signalled something major and new in the national public debate.

In it together: Australia and Indonesia since the Bali bombings

speech in support of wikileaks & against 11 years of war in Afghanistan ….

This month is the 11th an­niver­sary of the Afghan war, a dis­as­trous con­flict that has achieved noth­ing more than de­struc­tion for Afghans and for­eign­ers.

Does it really matter whether Tony Abbott, some 35 years ago, punched a wall on either side of the head of Barbara Ramjan? Well, yes, it must, because Tony Abbott himself has told us so.

Sydney University Liberal Club

Events of the month:

It starts with ''b'' and it ends in ''t''. Found in paddocks, mushrooms love it, it squishes underfoot and this time every year we dig it in where we're going to plant tomatoes. Australians can smell it a mile off.

From it, the careers of so many indignant, megalomaniacal, self-deluding, bullying, pumped-up disc jockeys have flourished.

In the recent Northern Territory election, Barbara Shaw was the Greens candidate for Braitling, one of the electorates in Alice Springs. She is Aboriginal and strongly opposed to the Northern Territory intervention.

We could call it Romnesia: the ability of the very rich to forget the context in which they made their money. To forget their education, inheritance, family networks, contacts and introductions. To forget the workers whose labour enriched them. To forget the infrastructure and security, the educated workforce, the contracts, subsidies and bailouts the government provided.

The usually media-shy Margie Abbott says a deliberate campaign is being waged against her husband to raise doubts about his relationship with women.

She has told Channel Nine the attacks are personal and groundless because Mr Abbott understands women.

So, Mrs Abbott – “Margie” – you seem to be a tad upset at the so-called “personal” attacks on your husband?

Well boo, bloody, boo hoo.

On July 19, 2011, Aaron Swartz, a computer programmer and activist, was arrested for downloading 4.8 million academic articles. The articles constituted nearly the entire catalogue of JSTOR, a scholarly research database. Universities that want to use JSTOR are charged as much as $50,000 in annual subscription fees.