from Crikey …

Bernard Keane

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today confirmed the attack.

Not a week goes pass without Richard Dawkins being attacked by some of the pseudo-scientists of the dumb religious designer department. To them Dawkins is the devil incarnate. Mind you Dawkins always pops his head where he knows he will be hit by the religious mob for stirring anti-godot controversy.

IBAC investigates the Victorian education department’s failed Ultranet …

Scientists say they are fed up with Queensland’s biggest newspaper not covering the worst bleaching event to hit the Great Barrier Reef, so have taken out a full page ad to get the message out.

The ad comes as a survey revealed 93% of the Great Barrier Reef was affected by the bleaching. That finding motivated the Queensland government to call on the federal government to convene an urgent meeting of the nation’s environment ministers to talk about measures to address climate change in light of bleaching.

The Earth sizzled in March with the most unusually warm month in recorded history as average land surface temperatures easily exceeded levels deemed by scientists to constitute dangerous climate change.

The abnormal weather has continued into April as the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Indian Ocean dumped rain at rates reaching 300 mm an hour, and Australian scientists declared the worst coral bleaching event ever on the Great Barrier Reef.

Millions of Australians live in households without internet access, according to the World Economic Forum, who have awarded Australia the lowest scoring country in the category of affordability for internet access.

I hate the expression exactly correct... but I will go straight to the crux of the matter. Australia is about to loose its "rigourous" border protection system for exotic diseases and feral animals as the TPP will be enforced. As well as pointed out by Catalyst ABC/TV food import in this country is tested for antibiotics but not for bacterial content.

Attorney general plunges into climate controversy during debate on CSIRO funding, as Malcolm Turnbull confirms election is all but certain to be on 2 July. All the developments from Canberra

The glorious Uncle Rupe network is everywhere. Some of its branches are running at a loss. Such losses in any independent press outfits would lead to catastrophic bankruptcy. The Australian for example has not made a profit as I know of since its inception in 1964. 

Type 26 Global Combat Ship

Seeing as it's turned out, amid yesterday's shipbuilding announcements, that one of the three remaining contenders to construct the Future frigates in Adelaide is the one I wrote about in the Adelaide Advertiser's letters page (on Halloween) 18 months ago, I've thought to republish what was printed then.  Given that it's the one with its photo in this morning's Australian, you could guess it's chances are still high..

10:45am: Senator Parry is having none of it: "This is the last bastion of standing orders that we must defend."

Senator Conroy moves away from anything of a regal or vice-regal nature and confines himself to the government's motives (with space for a swipe at the Greens).