PEOPLE often remember the past with exaggerated fondness. Sometimes, however, important aspects of life really were better in the old days.

During the three decades after World War II, for example, incomes in the United States rose rapidly and at about the same rate — almost 3 percent a year — for people at all income levels. America had an economically vibrant middle class. Roads and bridges were well maintained, and impressive new infrastructure was being built. People were optimistic.

The foreclosure fraud crisis seems to escalate with each passing now. It is being reported that all 50 U.S. states have launched a joint investigation into alleged fraud in the mortgage industry. This is a huge story that is not going to go away any time soon.

Barry O'Farrell has promised to allow new types of gambling technology and games into NSW clubs if he is elected premier, while ruling out proposed reforms to poker machine laws.

The NSW Opposition Leader has also promised to ease a cap on the number of electronic roulette and blackjack games in clubs.

The concessions are part of a memorandum of understanding struck between Clubs NSW and the Coalition that includes $300 million in tax breaks on their poker machine profits.

''This deal shows a terrifying contempt for the interests of the people of NSW,'' the anti-gambling activist Paul Bendat said yesterday.

going cheap, the mother of all souvenirs .....

At the Vatican Mint we're delighted to announce our new and exciting Mary MacKillop heirloom collection, a unique heritage range of exquisite merchandise, gifts and memorabilia especially created by world famous artists in reverent homage to A Saint For All Australians.

The Mother Mary Figurine

Her former husband thought she was perfectly capable of supporting herself as a legal secretary or personal assistant after their marriage broke down.

But having emerged from the ''long, expensive and fraught litigation'' that followed their separation, the woman wanted nothing more to do with lawyers or the law - and the Family Court has ordered her former husband pay her $1000 a week while she retrains for another career.

The order came as Justice Stuart Fowler determined a property settlement for the Sydney pair who, for legal reasons, cannot be named.

ABC Radio has just stated that the federal government is about to announce a major policy shift in the management of asylum seekers by releasing them into the Australian community pending the processing of their applications ....... with the only caveat being that they must not represent a security threat.

If this is correct, it will be only the 2nd time in more than a decade that I could say that I'm proud of our federal government & not embarassed to be an Australian ..... the first being Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generation.

If this policy change does eventuate, it should be recognised that Australia is one of the last countries in the world to adopt a genuinely humanitarian approach to dealing with the refugee problem.

This announcement will prove to be a defining moment for the Gillard Labor government ....

Statement from Greens Senator .........

There is a dark psychology to being in opposition. It is easy to get into an angry mindset, especially when you come so close to winning as Tony Abbott did in the recent election.

Initial euphoria gives way to the realisation that winning government could be years away. I suspect the angry outbursts from Abbott in the past week have a lot to do with disappointment and frustration at just falling short of winning government.

It likes to present itself as a grassroots insurgency made up of hundreds of local groups intent on toppling the Washington elite.

But the Tea Party movement, which is threatening to cause an upset in next month's midterm elections, would not be where it is today without the backing of that most traditional of US political supporters – Big Oil.

The billionaire brothers who own Koch Industries, a private company with 70,000 employees and annual revenues of $100bn (£62bn), used to joke that they controlled the biggest company nobody had ever heard of.

Tony Abbott (''Soldiers thrown to wolves, says Abbott,'' October 13) seems to be suggesting that Australian troops should not be subject to the rule of law. Imagine the outcry if he were to suggest that a priest accused of sexual abuse should not have that claim tested in court because we should support priests who are working for the good of the community.

Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China's far west.

Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan's president, from bragging, "This project has not only commercial or economic value. It is also political. China, through its wise and farsighted policy, has become one of the key guarantors of global security."

from Crikey .....

Some things to bear in mind on the Murray-Darling Basin...

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

China overnight slammed the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as a violation of the award's ideals, while the laureate's joyful wife led calls for his immediate release.

Beijing - which has repeatedly branded the 54-year-old writer a criminal following his December 2009 jailing for 11 years on subversion charges - also warned Norway that ties would suffer over the Nobel committee's decision.

"The Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to those who work to promote ethnic harmony, international friendship, disarmament and who hold peace meetings. These were [Alfred] Nobel's wishes," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

While Ms Gillard said yesterday she no longer intended to comment on the saga and thus fuel it, Mr Abbott said he needed to keep defending himself because he was the gatekeeper of the nation's values.

''One of the things that so disappoints me about the election result is that I am the standard bearer for values and ideals which matter and which are important and … as the leader of the Coalition, millions and millions of people invest their hopes in me and it's very important that I don't let them down.

''When I am unfairly attacked, I've got to respond and I've got to respond in a tough way.''