Eighty-one congressmen, or about 20 percent of the US House of Representatives, will visit Israel over the next three weeks during Congress's summer recess, with the first group of 26 Democrats scheduled to arrive on Monday.

The Democratic delegation will be followed by two Republican ones, bringing a total of 55 Republicans.

Most of the representatives are freshmen congressmen, with 47 - or fully half of the freshmen Republicans voted into office in 2010 - making the trip.

For many of them, this will be their first trip to Israel.

stuffed...

Rick Perry, one of the leading Republican contenders for the 2012 White House race, is under fire after organising a huge Christian evangelical rally at a football stadium in Houston, Texas.

Although he has not yet formally declared his intention to stand, Perry is in second place in some polls behind front-runner Mitt Romney. But critics say he is risking his reputation on Saturday's planned day of prayer and fasting that he has declared in response to the economic and moral crisis facing the country.

Can a half-hour chat about God really warp children's minds? Listening to Australia's increasingly irate secularists, you could be forgiven for thinking so.

They have upped the ante in their war against ''special religious instruction'' in public schools, depicting it as the modern-day equivalent of a Christian crusade arriving on horseback to convert young Aussies to a lifetime of Bible-bashing. 

Critique of this rubbish follows:

This was expressed by Brendan O'Neill, a communist, an atheist (who must be getting old) in an article called: "A confident secularist society would tolerate school religion"

From Chris Floyd

So the deed is done. The "debt ceiling" crisis has been "resolved" by a further maniacal destruction of the commonweal, in a bipartisan pact that completely ignores the murderous imperial wars as the primary drain on the nation's treasury. As we noted here yesterday, the deal also sets up an unaccountable politburo (the special "Super Congress" committee) that will remove further coddling of the rich from the democratic process altogther.

God it's wonderful - really diverting in a macabre sort of way, at least if you have a diseased sense of humor and enough Padre Kino red. Which I do.

As I write the world's only delusional superpower, perennially in love with itself, navel-gazing as narcissistically as ever, ignorant, self-indulgent, gurbling like an insane relative in the attic and fondling electro-trinkets from Japan, is broke. Yes, we see a beautiful dive from the high board, two somersaults and a half-twist, into the Third World. And so richly deserved.

Much of central and southern Australia has had its warmest end to July in decades, with the last few days of the month 3 to 8 degrees above average.

To get at least four days of this warmth at the end of July without a cool change is rare, Brett Dutschke, senior meteorologist at weatherzone.com.au said.

It hasn't happened in more than 100 years in some places, he said.

In each of the past four days, Adelaide reached 19 degrees and Hobart 15, their warmest end to July in more than 120 years of records.

Canberra also hit 15 degrees over four days, its warmest end to July in 36 years.

Melbourne had a top of 19 degrees yesterday and today's expected maximum is also 19.

Picture by Gus — dry river bed of a Finke River tributary, central Australia (Northern Territory) ...

Mr Nile also took aim at the Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, who had refused to consider removing ethics classes because the government had given an election commitment.

''The impression I got was that [Mr O'Farrell] was unhappy with how the Education Minister had handled this,'' Mr Nile said.

In an indication the government has agreed to negotiate on issues other than ethics as part of the deal, Mr Nile says he is ''encouraged'' by discussions in the meeting about his other private member's bills.

Mr Nile, who has indicated a general willingness to support government legislation, has submitted 21 bills to the government.

The state government has bowed to pressure from Fred Nile and will consider removing ethics classes from schools only months after they began.

A deal the Christian Democratic Party MP says he has struck with the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, places at risk the Coalition's election promise not to remove the classes, which began in February under the former Labor government as an alternative to religious education lessons.

But it also presents Mr Nile and the government with a potential compromise over the issue, on which neither has been willing to give ground since it re-emerged two weeks ago.

The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.