The way Tony Windsor recalls it, Tony Abbott begged crossbench MPs to make him prime minister, joking ''the only thing I wouldn't do is sell my arse - but I'd have to give serious thought to it''.

In interviews to mark the anniversary of their decision to back Julia Gillard to run the country, independent MPs have revealed startling new details of their reservations about the Opposition Leader, including that joking plea.

And Bob Katter - one of the crossbenchers who backed Mr Abbott - is now deeply disenchanted, accusing the Liberal leader of welching on a deal to put up laws mandating ethanol in petrol.

That Tony Abbott prevented Malcolm Turnbull and Simon Crean to pair off to the funeral of one of Australia's greatest Artists shows a callousness beyond sociopathy. Let's face it, Abbotticchio is a lying idiot with influence... Had I been Malcolm I would have made a deal with Simon and stuff the little shitty woody long-nosed puppet of the mining industry's instructions.

He should resign forthwith for lacking any decency nor any understanding of history... He's a little shit and should be told so.

Noah's Ark could never have contained them: there are probably about 8.7 million species of living things, the vast majority of them undiscovered, according to what is believed to be the most authoritative estimate ever carried out of the scale of life on earth.

So far, about 1.2 million species, ranging from microscopic insects to the blue whale, the largest living creature, have been described, but it has always been recognised that the true total is very much higher. Previous estimates have ranged from three million, right up to 100 million, but the new figure, based on an innovative analytical technique, dramatically narrows the range of possibilities.

No sooner had not-so-long-ago stockmarket darling, Bluescope Steel, announced its dismal profit result for 2011, along with news that more than a 1,000 jobs were to go, than Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, leapt out with her announcement that the federal government would provide Bluescope with a $100 million cash injection to "prevent further job losses".

The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.

If you think that's a few spies too many - spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment - one doesn't have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.

Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.

from Crikey .....

The shadows of '75 are creeping across an angry political landscape

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

from Crikey .....

Menadue: urgent need for a new approach to asylum seekers

On August 26, 2001, MV Tampa rescued 438 asylum seekers from their distressed vessel Palapa 1. Since then Australia's asylum policy has been a tale of human tragedy, political opportunism, policy failure and great cost. Today's stalemate around our treatment of asylum seekers and refugees represents one of this country's greatest moral failures.

This time David Cameron didn't mind interrupting his holiday. Two weeks after cutting short his main summer break in Tuscany because of the riots, the Prime Minister broke another family holiday in Cornwall to handle Britain's response to the dramatic endgame in Libya.

After taking a high-stakes gamble by calling for international intervention six months ago, Mr Cameron could hardly be blamed for wanting a share of the limelight when Muammar Gaddafi's regime finally crumbled.

Ii was, I thought, a legitimate question. Broadcaster Alan Jones had spent the morning speaking passionately to the crowd outside Parliament House for yesterday's ''Convoy of no confidence''.

He urged them to action, he praised them, he denounced the government and declared Australian democracy dead.

About 1.10pm, Jones handed the microphone to another speaker, and I approached him, introducing myself. I asked him whether he had taken a fee to appear at the rally.

WASHINGTON

President Obama was on the way to Alpha when a plea came for him to be, well, more alpha.

LuAnn Lavine, a real estate agent from Geneseo, a rural town just up the road from Alpha, Ill., the last stop on the president’s Midwestern bus tour, told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny: “Everyone was so hopeful with him, but Washington grabbed him and here we are. I just want him to stay strong and don’t take the guff. We want a president who is a leader, and I want him to be a little bit stronger.”

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.