Just after Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor decided to back Labor, a relieved minister observed that, throughout the election campaign, Tony Abbott had reminded him of the Terminator, the Hollywood-created cyborg that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star.

The seemingly indestructible cyborg assassin travelled back in time from 2029 to 1984 Los Angeles, programmed to kill its target, Sarah Connor.

In the kill-or-be-killed game of politics, the minister was paying Abbott a compliment with the analogy to the cold-blooded and emotionless killing machine.

US President Barack Obama has slammed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's September 11 conspiracy theory comments at the United Nations as ''offensive'' and ''hateful''.

In his first comments on the Iranian leader's statement that the 2001 terrorist attacks on America may have been orchestrated to bolster the US economy and ''save the Zionist regime'', Mr Obama told BBC Persian that ''for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable''.

US and European diplomats walked out of the UN General Assembly hall on Friday when Mr Ahmadinejad delivered his remarks about the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

from Crikey .....

The Usher of the Black Rod is displeased

Andrew Crook writes:

Downhill With the G.O.P.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.

From letters at the SMH (25/09/10)

Section 40 of the Australian constitution states that the speaker of the House of Representatives shall not have a vote on matters before it, only a casting vote in the event of a tie.

The pairing of MPs (''Gillard tries to lure Coalition defector'', September 24) in a disciplined two-party system is a practice designed to preserve the value of someone's vote when they are unavoidably absent from the House.

Pairing of the speaker has never been part of this practice because there is no deliberative vote to preserve. Indeed, if the speaker's vote was to be paired, then the speaker could effectively end up having two votes in the event of a tie.

from Crikey .....

Bolt in court: freedom of speech v the prohibition of race hate

Margaret Simons writes:

Mural in Newtown, Sydney, now vanished as townhouses have been built in front of it. Picture by Gus, 2005.

from Crikey .....

Two detainee deaths 10 years apart ... what have we learned?

Crikey intern Inga Ting writes:

Celebrations have taken place in Israel to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organisation which paved the way for the establishment of the state of Israel and the Israeli Defence Forces. A headline in the Jewish Chronicle refers to "the generation that established Israel" above a photograph of some elderly veterans rather sadly wearing military uniforms.

In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life's essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States - one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps - these questions take on new urgency.

News Ltd bias this year never approached the levels of 1975 when, for the only time in our history, the company's journalists went on strike to protest against editorial distortion.

Bill Hayden joked that if Gough Whitlam had walked across Lake Burley Griffin, The Australian's headline would have been ''Gough can't swim''.

A controversial Republican candidate for the US Senate is trying to play down revelations that she dabbled with witchcraft in high school.

"How many of you didn't hang out with questionable folks...?" said Christine O'Donnell, a day after a clip of her discussing the occult was rebroadcast.

Ms O'Donnell is backed by the right-wing, grassroots Tea Party and known for her conservative Christian views.

Last week she beat a veteran politician for the Senate nomination in Delaware.

In the biggest ticket scramble since the 2000 Olympics, Oprah is planning for an audience of about 3000 people for two episodes in the forecourt of the Opera House.

This will include the 300 loyal audience members, who were told at the opening show of Oprah's farewell season yesterday that they were being treated to the trip.

Ticketing for the summer telecasts will be finalised by Oprah's Harpo Productions next month, with fans to log their interest online on a date to be advised.

Amid frenzied scenes on the Chicago set of her show, the TV host sent a personalised message to Australia sharing her wish list for the "dream vacation".

Cracks have appeared in the agreement between the country independents and the major parties over parliamentary reform, after independent MP Rob Oakeshott dropped his bid to be speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mr Oakeshott announced his plans to seek the job as speaker last week, but changed his mind after meeting Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and manager of Opposition business Christopher Pyne yesterday.

He said he was backing a Liberal to take the speaker's job but accused the Opposition of moving away from the spirit of the reform agreement hammered out in the wake of the inconclusive federal election.