Without question, 2011 was a year replete with hyperbole and false prophecy, which, come to think of it, is typical of our time.

JANUARY The new year has barely begun when Bob Ellis, the seer of Palm Beach, declares on the ABC's The Drum: ''I alone, in all of Australia, think Labor will hold government'' in NSW. Shortly before April Fools' Day, Barry O'Farrell leads the Coalition to one of the greatest victories in Australian political history. Earlier in January, reports emerge that environmentalist Tim Flannery predicted that, within this century, a ''strong Gaia will actually become physically manifest''. One person's Gaia is another's full moon.

Real estate mogul and reality TV personality Donald Trump has quit the Republican Party to register as an independent, opening the way for a potential outsider run at the White House.
Trump made the switch on Thursday, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, told The Hill political news website.
Trump did this "in order to preserve his right to run as an independent ... if he is not satisfied with whom the candidate is", Cohen told The Hill.

Animals are more intelligent than we think. For example this morning I witnessed something very cunning...

Foreboding and warning. Egypt should have felt it coming. This was the worst so far. Hope is gone. The people are in despair. As our imam shouted Friday at noon prayer: Will it get worse before we have cleansed the land of Satan?

A large metallic ball has fallen out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

With violence and government crackdowns making headlines from so many familiar parts of the world, there's hardly been a peep in the media about the biggest and ugliest massacre of all: Last Friday in Kazakhstan, riot police slaughtered up 70 striking oil workers, wounding somewhere between 500 and 800, and arresting scores.

You'll be chuffed to know our country is doing its bit for 'world peace' this Christmas.

The Australian Army is preparing for longer "campaigns"; we voted against Palestine's admission to the UNESCO and we lobbied to weaken the international ban on cluster bomb munitions.

We also decided to sell uranium to India, a country standing outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a country whose nuclear program is stimulated by its neighbour (Pakistan) having the fastest-growing nuclear weapons program in the world, and a country whose government has been prepared to bribe MPs to secure the votes for a nuclear future, as evidenced by the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008.

The soft-roader in front sports one of those ridiculous ''baby on board'' signs that makes you want to shove its exhaust pipe up its rear-vision mirror. (Like, sure, I was going to rear-end you, but since you have a BABY on board I'll save my murderous impulses for the next person.)

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has said Nauru isn't the only option for offshore processing and the Coalition would be ''perfectly happy for boat people to go to Manus Island''.

Banks have gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros ($635 billion) in three-year, cut-price loans from the European Central Bank, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy eurozone economies.

Following a string of failed attempts by eurozone leaders to thwart market attacks on the bloc's weaker members, hopes of crisis relief before year's end had been pinned on a massive uptake of the ECB's ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans.

You’ve just gotta love our supreme media …..

Gus picture of godot's particle

This is an article posted here earlier (17th December) that seems to have gone walkabout...

The Prime Minister will spend Christmas doing ''very ordinary things'' with her family at home in Adelaide, she told the broadcaster John Laws last week.

''[We] watch DVDs together, have family meals, read books, you know all of that kind of stuff. Just very normal, quiet, at-home activities,'' she said.

As most Australians contemplate a traditional Christmas of over-indulgence and recuperation, we should spare a thought for one of our less fortunate compatriots. He lives in exile under house arrest, awaiting one last hopeful court appeal. He faces a perilous future should that appeal fail.

But Mark Feldstein, professor of media at the University of Maryland, sees a worrying trend of espionage prosecutions since President Obama took office.

"To everyone's surprise, the Obama administration has escalated the war against whistleblowers and the attacks on information that journalists and the public were depending on to get evidence of wrongdoing by powerful institutions and individuals," Prof Feldstein says.

'Vindictive and malicious'