But the “D’uh” award goes to funny-as-toothache comedienne Corinne Grant of the axed Glasshouse show who told the masses the struggle against the Federal Government’s new IR laws was “one of the biggest fights we have seen in our lives”. “And we’re going to win this,” she said. “The only person who is going to lose his job is John Howard.” Er, that’s apart from Corinne.

Only education can root out jihad, says Israeli general.

According to Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu, Premier Steve Bracks runs a do-nothing Government. Unfortunately, it isn't true. Bracks runs a do-something Government, indeed almost a do-anything Government if there is even the faintest whiff of a green vote involved.

Forty Victorian families have paid almost $60,000 for water that does not exist after their local water authority cut off their supply, drained their lake and continued to demand payment.

PETER Costello has held out the prospect of cheaper fizzy drinks and lollies after the abolition of a 3c/kg sugar tax.
The Treasurer said the tax cut should flow through to consumers.
"It should reduce prices and we will be asking the manufacturers to deliver the benefits to consumers," Mr Costello said.

The London 2012 Olympics are spending an additional £400 million to keep the final cost of the Games down.

Urination will go to committee
A local decision that schoolboys must sit on toilet seats when urinating has provoked political debate.

A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.

Climate is the most complex, coupled, non-linear, chaotic system known, and it is intrinsically unlikely that climate change can be predicated on a single variable, or factor, however politically convenient.

Countries like China will happily go along with the ideas in principle, while - and who can blame them? - developing as fast as they can, although at the moment they appear not even to have heard of Sir Nicholas! They will delight in producing all the world's solar panels for a gullible West, while still opening a coal mine per week.

PAUL RIGBY, MILTON FRIEDMAN
Cartoonist Paul Rigby has died at 82; economist Milton Friedman has died at 94. Kim Beazley sends his condolences to the families of Kinky Friedman and Eleanor Rigby.

Too many people were making bad lifestyle choices that set them up for disease, he said.

Perhaps the most important application of the precautionary principle is to the precautionary principle itself. Otherwise we may find ourselves doing very stupid things in its name.

While in opposition, he co-ordinated tactics with government backbenchers Jeff Rooker and Audrey Wise to secure legislation providing for the automatic indexation of tax thresholds to prevent the tax burden being increased by inflation (typically in excess of 10% per annum during that parliament).

Hussein may be hanged by spring, lawyer says

reports that a Devon rugby club is showing a video projection of a bonfire at its fireworks party to avoid the costs of meeting health and safety regulations

Wild seafood stocks could collapse by 2050 – including tuna, striped bass, blue crabs, oysters and clams – devastating food supplies, scientists warn in a major study to be published today.

especially at a time when pollution, overfishing and global warming are adding pressures, too.

“There is a clear and present danger to humans and their food security,” Duffy said.

“It looks grim and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer,” he said. “But it’s not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it.”

The final box office figures are in and do not lie: this year's Melbourne International Arts Festival was a colossal failure.
Compare. In 2001, the festival's ticket sales reached $3.5 million. By 2004, they'd slumped to $2 million. New director Kristy Edmunds did even worse last year, with a box office of just $1.6 million.
And now she's wiped out a third of even that. This year's chickenfeed result reached just $1.04 million.
That takes some doing, given she did this with the help of a record $5.9 million in grants.

Gender inequalities will likely worsen with climate change. Workloads and responsibilities such as collecting water, fuel and food will grow and become more time consuming in light of greater resource scarcity. This will allow less time for education or participation in market-based work. A particular burden will be imposed on those households that are short of labour, further exacerbated if the men migrate in times of extreme stress leaving women vulnerable to impoverishment, forced marriage, labour exploitation and trafficking. Women are ‘over-represented’ in agriculture and the informal economy, sectors that will be hardest hit by climate change. This exposure is coupled with a low capacity to adapt given their unequal access to resources such as credit and transport. Women are also particularly vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters with women and children accounting for more than 75% of displaced persons following natural disasters.