It is hard to know what was more surprising for the average online file-sharer - that sleepy New Zealand was home to the likes of Kim Dotcom, the corpulent magnate behind the Megaupload website; or that the FBI had hunted him halfway around the world and arrested him in the panic room of his $30 million mansion.

But we should be surprised on neither front. The US will go to the ends of the earth to protect its big entertainment corporations and Australia could be the scene of a bigger coup in coming months.

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, sought yesterday to defend his party's renewed policy of turning back all asylum boats at sea as the approach was attacked by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Indonesian authorities and a former naval chief as dangerous and breaching international law.

As usual when musing about a particular sample of the TSA’s evil, it’s tough to decide which detail most infuriates.

The Case of the Strip-Searched Seniors offers a perfect example. What angers you most: the TSA’s shaming frail, elderly invalids by compelling them to disrobe for a governmental goon’s inspection; its lying about these atrocities; or its "apology" that continues smearing the grannies as prevaricators?

Australian comedy performer Barry Humphries has won the title of Australian of the Year in the UK.

He opened his acceptance speech by quoting Rupert Murdoch's comments in front of a British parliamentary committee on phone hacking last year.

Slippery Slipper props up Julia Gillard Government after Andrew Wilkie withdraws support

Slipper is effectively the man holding up the Gillard Government. And the Sunshine Coast turncoat is set to come under renewed pressure from local voters over his move to accept the Speaker's role now that key Independent Andrew Wilkie has abandoned the Labor ship over pokies' reform.

The government faces renewed pressure to announce tough measures on bankers' pay this week as data shows that the average remuneration for 1,265 senior staff was £1.8m in 2010.

The analysis of regulatory disclosures by eight leading banks comes as the business secretary, Vince Cable, prepares to announce on Tuesday how he will tackle the issue of executive pay.

ONE of the state's most senior police officers has been forced to step aside from an investigation into the alleged police beating of a cricket fan after it emerged that the officer involved was his son.

When NSW Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch fronted television cameras on Friday, he defended the actions of an officer who was captured on video punching a cricket fan.

What he did not realise at the time was that the officer in question was his 24-year-old son, Thomas.

from Crikey ….. 

Civil liberties groups to A-G: ASIO refugee assessments unjust

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people’s resistance to the war on democracy.

JULIA Gillard says Tony Abbott's pledge to "turn back the boats" can't be done because the Navy has warned it will put at risk the lives of Australian sailors.

But the Opposition Leader says the option will remain a key plank of his asylum seeker policy.

"No one ever said that it was going to be easy, no one ever said that it was going to be possible in every circumstance," Mr Abbott said, as he campaigned in the PM's western suburbs seat of Lalor.

"What we've said, though, is that it should be an option to turn the boats around where it is safe to do so. The Navy's done it before, it can do it again."

From Mike Carlton

One of my new year's resolutions was to ignore the Republican primaries in the United States, but I have broken it already.

They have a horrible, irresistible fascination, not unlike watching a funnel web spider crawling across your lounge-room carpet. All those spray-on tans, those spray-on first names - Mitt, Newt, Rick, Ron - and worse, those spray-on opinions confected out there on the lunar right. These people have spun so far off any rational policy axis that they make George W. Bush look like a Roosevelt liberal.

The benefits of being rich are numerous, and probably don't need a great deal of explanation from me. The ability to travel the world at the drop of a hat is, I imagine, one of the many advantages great wealth brings, as is the possibility of doing away with a number of the banal inconveniences that plague everyday life. Not having to get out of bed at the crack of dawn for work has its appeal, as does eating the best food and never having to cook any of the damn stuff.

Miranda Gibson is today sitting on a small platform 60 metres high in a Eucalyptus regnans beneath Mt Mueller in central Tasmania. She has been on the platform for more than four weeks and intends to stay until the tree is cut down or governments keep their word that the tree, its wildlife and the mountainside forest in which it sits are protected.

Just over the ridge from Miranda are the Styx River and its Valley of the Giants, named after the kings and queens of the eucalypts, which tower up to 100 metres high - that is, as high as a soccer field is long.

Courage is a virtue and heroism is admirable, but do we have a right to demand them? Which of us cannot look back on his or her own life and remember decisions, or compromises made, or silences kept because of cowardice, even when the penalties for courage were negligible?

If we are cowardly in small things, shall we be brave in large? Have we the right to point the finger until we have been tested ourselves? When we read of the seemingly lamentable conduct of the captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, who left his passengers to their fate, do we say, ''There but for the grace of God go I''?