Global warming is basically a macro-mechanical science of flux with statistical, observational calculations and applied technology. It is a simple science. Compared to the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, global warming should be as easy to understand as buttering a toast on the right side.

Terry Beath from South Melbourne reckons Peter Slipper has been dudded by his former "mates”.

Did he fly from Western Australia to northern Queensland with his wife to look at a new property purchase?

"To work for the dole" The Abbott spake "you'll sail towards the stars.  

There's no job left for you on Earth, you'll have to go to Mars.

The driftwood is shifted as soon as you're lifted, there'll be no sympathisers, 

for long it's been known that the bad seeds sown make brilliant colonisers."

At a pub in Spaceport Woomera the Goverment insisted

that the folks departing offworld on vodka got quite plastered

For while their bodies travel stacked in cryogenic freezers

the antifreeze of Vodka to the soul is just like Jesus.

That pub had people drinking there from al across the world

drinking toasts to say goodbye to anything they'd loved.

"Last drinks!"the barman shouted as he banged upon a bell

So we formed in lines and marched toward our Interplanetary Hell.

from the Monthly

The question remains whether, in the same way that sacred images can be consumed and dismissed by those whose fickle tastes have been formed by the visual orgy that is modern media, the disciplines formed through the patient contemplation of icons might in fact redeem the otherwise sterile inanibus phantasmibus of our media age. But that will have to wait for another time ...

Scott Stephens is the Religion & Ethics Editor for ABC Online.

Tony Abbott leads the world's first Tea Party Government — something that simply does not fit into Australia's usual political spectrum, writes Cathy McQueen.

In the Exodus account, Israel suffered without apparent sin. It prays (cries) for help, and God hears and sends a redeemer [Moses]. In prophetic accounts of the First Destruction, Israel suffers for its sins, but also suffers beyond measure. As very briefly sampled here, late rabbinic accounts of the Second Destruction both imitate features of the prophetic accounts of Israel's sins and also add a new voice: Israel seems fated to its suffering as if there were no apparent reason for it. The Second Destruction appears to challenge Israel's relation with God in unforeseen ways.

Unless you've been living on one of the moons of Saturn, you've heard by now of the NSA's comprehensive collection of information from millions and millions of Americans. Phone calls, email messages, and even pictures you posted on Facebook: All of it is sitting in a supercomputer in Maryland, waiting to be dealt with by our avatars of surveillance freedom in the intelligence community.