from Crikey .....

Guthrie wins out in unfair dismissal case, judge slams Harto & Blunden

Andrew Crook writes:

The New South Wales Government has announced it will block the proposed Bickham coal mine in the Upper Hunter Valley near Scone.

The mine has been strongly opposed by locals in the area, who say their farming activities and horse studs would be adversely affected for little gain.

Premier Kristina Keneally says the project was assessed on its merits and they did not stack up.

She says she will amend government policy to stop similar proposals in the future.

"The Government will not allow the Bickham coal mine proposal to proceed," she said.

Volunteers cleaning a beach in Louisiana

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

- Stevie Smith

from Crikey .....

Fee gouging: banks may take it up the class (action)

Adam Schwab writes:

from Crikey .....

Ruddquake: That's not a meltdown. This is a meltdown

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

The Federal Government has fended off accusations its plan to get the budget back into the black is banking too heavily on a continuing mining boom and big taxes.

Treasurer Wayne Swan unveiled his "no-frills" 2010-11 budget last night, his pre-election pitch to voters focusing on spending restraint and conservative economic management.

The forecasts paint a vastly different picture for Australia's economic prospects than what was predicted just a year ago and the Government says its strict fiscal controls are a major driver of the improvement.

from Crikey .....

Senator Milne: a few stings in the tail of the boring budget

Greens Senator Christine Milne writes:

In his book, “Heaven + Earth. Global warming: the missing science”, Professor Ian Plimer from the University of Adelaide questions the science of human-induced climate change. A range of Australian scientists respond to the book.

But first a word from Gus.

I find it quite extraordinary that a serious scientist, atheist and sceptic, would use the word "heaven" in the title of his work. It's perverse. Being a miner as well as a professor, Ian Plimer would have massive conflict of interests should he subscribe to the "global warming" theory. Thus he does not.

TONY Abbott is under pressure to justify a claim to primary school students that it was considerably warmer when Jesus was alive than it is today.

The Opposition Leader urged year 5 and 6 students at Trinity Gardens Primary School in Adelaide to be sceptical about the human contribution to climate change, saying it was an open question.

During a question-and-answer session on Friday, Mr Abbott said that it was warmer ''at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth'' than now.

When Pope John Paul II was still living in Poland as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, he claimed that the security police would accuse priests of sexual abuse just to hassle and discredit them. (New York Times, 3/28/10). For Wojtyła, the Polish pedophilia problem was nothing more than a Communist plot to smear the church.

By the early 1980s, Wojtyła, now ensconced in Rome as Pope John Paul II, treated all stories about pedophile clergy with dismissive aplomb, as little more than slander directed against the church. That remained his stance for the next twenty years.

More than one unwitting visitor to Jerusalem has fallen prey to the bizarre delusion that they are the Messiah. Usually, they are whisked off to the serene surroundings of Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city, where they are gently nursed back to health.

It is an interesting irony that the patients at Kfar Shaul recuperate from such variations on amnesia on the very spot that Israel has sought to erase from its collective memory.

If a Jewish state were run by the secret police, Israelis could disappear without a trace. No contact with lawyers. Court-ordered muzzles on broadcast and print news media.

If a Jewish state were run by the secret police, there were be gag orders forbidding journalists to write even of the existence of the gag orders.

Thank God such a thing couldn't happen here.

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf.

One of them was dated Friday - the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling.

from Crikey .....

Here come the towelheads - Abbott hits his stride

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

from Crikey .....

Essential: Rudd is damaged goods, and badly damaging Labor in turn

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

Kevin Rudd has led Labor to the brink of a first-term defeat that was unthinkable just weeks ago, with Essential Media's new poll showing Labor's once-formidable lead giving way to a 50:50 2PP.