We have created a situation in Australia of a High Terrorist Threat where the threat doesn't come from returning brutalised and radicalised Jihadist ISIS warriors but rather from returning brutalised and radicalised Australian soldiers

We think having re-education camps for the Jihadists might help to deal with the brutalised consciousnesses of 'the enemy' among us, but we just send our own brutalised soldiers back into homes and families and streets here.
At the same time we know, and our security forces know, that the highest risks come to us from those we sent into that monstrous destruction of poor Iraqis and simply to somehow propagate the ages-long delusion that we are a peaceful and free people.

The Problem with Australian Honours

The flaws in any Honours system is that there is no list of people who, through self respect, refused them. The concern regarding the giving of great Honours to a foreign Prince, or in terms of Saudi, a foreign dead King, is one thing...but the abiding flaw is that whilst we make a song and dance about such foolish choices, we are more than happy to spend a billion dollars a year to have our soldiers and airmen bombing poor and brutalised Iraqis who only want their own country back. No one seems to rally about the dishonour this means every day to every Australian, including our soldiers and airmen.

Tony Abbott, the Man Who Stopped the Votes

'ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering; there is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in.' leonard cohen

Kim Jong Un visit confirmed for Moscow in May It appears North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will make Moscow the venue for his first foreign visit in May.

Vale to Tom Uren, a great Australian Socialist. So much, so well done, so true.

Dear Editor As a secular, atheist, free speaking and free thinking Australian I am appalled by the continual destruction of human life and human meaning by the Great Religions, whether they be Baptists, Bath'ists, Bejesusus or BeJews Bemohammedans or Buddhists. To me, they are all an equal blight of cancer upon human societies and human intelligence and are only propelled through thousands of years by the powers of property ownership and buggery, which is all they are all basically interested in. Good riddance to bad rubbish. As for laws about free speech, well, I think if you have the courage to think it, then you have the courage to state it, and woe be to anyone who stands against that in the 21st century.