Select your preferred relaxation technique – a few deep breaths, a stiff drink perhaps, or some yoga – for you are about to hear how you have just paid for something twice.

Worse still, you will hear how you have been paying for something, on a quarterly basis for the past 10 years, which you have already paid for. We are all victims of a high-brow rort by governments and energy companies.

The downfall of democracy starts with our idealisation of this form of government. It's a bit like love and marriage... Nothing is ever perfect. 

The fudging, blocking and delaying from both conservative governments, in Australia and Britain, suggest the date when Tony Abbott renounced his British citizenship will be politically harmful to the Prime Minister. Law lecturer Ingrid Matthews looks at the facts.

The vote for Scottish Independance has reminded me to write a little of how my Mother's Ross family came to Austraila.  Basically we were booted out by the English so our crofts could become sheep stations.  We were told by the Church that we were being punished by eviction for the sins of our ancestors (Last time I went to the Church in Bonar Bridge, where the refugees camped before the international diaspora, you could still see the words "the wicked generation" scrawled in a window) and so we went... but not quite..

As I was dozing awake, I went, yet again, through the motions of global warming. A + B = C + (x)... Sorry, I am boring, aren't I?

Whistleblower Edward Snowden says New Zealand prime minister John Key has not been telling the truth about mass spying on citizens, just days before the country goes to the polls.

There's one good reason for why Scotland should vote yes for independence: the breaking up of the United Kingdom would be an imminently good thing for the sake of world peace.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has reassured Australians that everything possible is being done to protect them, a day after the terror alert was raised to high for the first time.

The decision to increase the alert level on Friday followed a spike in "chatter" detected in a sixfold increase in counter-terrorism operations during the past year.

Mr Abbott on Saturday repeated his assurance that the upgraded alert level did not mean a terror attack was imminent.

But it was designed to raise community awareness about the increased likelihood of a terrorist attack in Australia, with people urged to contact the authorities if they noticed anything suspicious.

The University of Sydney has withdrawn invitations for two Sri Lankan human rights organisations to an international conference at the request of the Sri Lankan military, angering campaigners.

It is not pleasant to contemplate the thoughts that must be passing through the mind of the Owl of Minerva as the dusk falls and she undertakes the task of interpreting the era of human civilization, which may now be approaching its inglorious end.