Steve Fielding, the Family First senator and creationist identified as more stupid than an earthworm by visiting English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, appears to have taken the classification literally and gone underground.

For days Canberra's ABC radio afternoon shift announcer Genevieve Jacobs had spruiked the senator's appearance on her bravely oxymoronic ''Pollies Without Politics'' segment.

A Liberal Senator has accused the Federal Government of turning the CSIRO into a political puppet on the issue of climate change.

Victorian Senator Julian McGauran made the comments following the release of a CSIRO report which concluded that climate change is affecting Australia and humans are contributing to it.

Senator McGauran says the organisation has been stripped of its independence and is doing the bidding of the Minister for Science, Kim Carr.

"Minister Carr without doubt has wandered through the CSIRO offices, intimidating the scientists and the executive to do as they're told," he said.

Bernie Madoff, the New York Ponzi scheme master who is now in jail, is generally said to be the biggest financial criminal in the history of the US.

But at an estimated $US60 billion or so, his con is insignificant compared to the $US138 billion con pulled by Lehman Brothers and some of its senior managers, in the nine months from the last quarter of 2007 to the June quarter of 2008.

The rise of a new conservative grass roots fueled by a secular revulsion at government spending is stirring fears among leaders of the old conservative grass roots, the evangelical Christian right.

...

The image above (Gus picture of a spider eating a fly that the spider has wrapped up in a cocoon) is representative of how we've manipulated our nature to believe and how we behave. We have augmented our natural needs of consumption into an art form, in which we cannibalise our environment by being too successful with bullshit — a concept allowed to be by our pinch of too much faith...

Citibank's "tough patooties" customer service charter

Adam Schwab writes:

from Crikey .....

Taxing at double time to pay for Abbott's baby bonus

Glenn Dyer writes:

February 13 marks the two-year anniversary of the Australian government's historic apology to its indigenous population.

Israel's decision to approve 1,600 new homes in an ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighbourhood is undermining Middle East peace talks, US Vice President Joe Biden said in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, the Interior Ministry approved the building of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, with a ministry official saying the plan will expand the ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighbourhood to the east & to the south.

The New South Wales Greens have raised concerns about new gun laws which mean security guards can now carry high-powered firearms.

The new regulations were gazetted just before Christmas, and in parliament this week the Greens unsuccessfully tried to disallow them.

The Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says it is an unwarranted relaxation of gun laws.

"Security guards will have more powerful weapons," she said.

"Weapons that have been used in massacres here and overseas."

Under the changes a security guard will need authorisation from the Police Commissioner to be given access to the weapons.

(Gosse's Bluff, Australia)

The New South Wales opposition leader Barry O'Farrell has shrugged off reports of a back-handed insult from his party's federal leader.

Tony Abbott is reported to have told a partyroom meeting yesterday that the federal opposition would not win the next election by adopting a 'Barry O'Farrell-style small target strategy.'

The comments have been gleefully picked up by the state Treasurer Eric Roozendaal who brought a picture of a very small target into the Upper House question time.

He says it is a severe indictment.

"Even your pin up boy is saying what you are saying behind Barry O'Farrell's back," he said.

Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of persecuting the family of the murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Walter Litvinenko, the former KGB agent's father, says the Italian PM’s chummy relationship with Vladimir Putin must be behind repeated delays in processing his request for asylum in Italy where he now lives. And the 71-year-old says his family have been harassed by local police, their business closed down - and are now dependent on charity.