from Crikey …..

Five Australians died in Afghanistan the other day. It is time to bring the troops home now. Why wait till 2014? Nothing will have changed. If we cut and run now rather than in 2014 we will save Afghan and Australian lives.

These soldiers are dying for the ANZUS insurance policy.

It is not just Afghanistan. It is Iraq. It is refugees drowning at sea or suiciding in detention centres. It is building workers dying on unsafe sites. It is young gay people killing themselves because of systemic homophobia. It is our Aboriginal brothers and sisters dying 17 years earlier than us. It is them being beaten to death in lock ups. It is the ongoing genocide against indigenous people, for example the Intervention and the theft of their land for the mining companies.

The United States flew highly classified Global Hawk spy drone missions from the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh in South Australia from late 2001 until at least 2006.

The operations were detected by a group of Adelaide aviation historians who had a member monitoring aircraft radio frequencies 20 hours a day.

Too many Coalition frontbenchers are invisible - or worse.

NEITHER our Prime Minister nor our Opposition Leader is popular. That shouldn't worry us at all. Governing a country and taking it to a better place is not a popularity contest.

Would you like an upgrade? Please come into the chairman's lounge for some free food and soothing muzak. And let us know if we can give you an iPad - to keep.

A little-known power enjoyed by the Queen and Prince of Wales to alter new laws is due to be exposed after the government lost a legal battle to keep details of its application private.

One-fifth of the "spineless creatures that rule the world" may be at risk of extinction, according to a new study.

In breaking news, Judge Bronstein of the Supreme Court of Never Ever Gunna Happen has issued an injunction against Daniel Grollo, ordering him to stay 100 metres away from any Grocon Construction site. His actions, said the Court, amount to thuggery and intimidation.

For at least the past two decades, Americans have been duped into believing that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximize value for its shareholders. That belief, first promoted in business schools, has been absorbed in the media, in academic circles, and in the political realm - even progressives like Al Franken have repeated it as if it were indisputable fact. But in reality, it has no basis in the law or American precedent.