The Australian, 15 December 2010

Remember way back in the halcyon first weeks of her reign when Julia sorted out the mining billionaires who are not quite as convinced about the inevitability of taxes as Mark Twain (or in fact any other non-billionaires)?

Well, it looks like somebody forgot to specify exactly what the word “all” means in relation to state mining royalties which has made things a bit awkward, and we all know how laid back state governments are when it comes to getting their cut of the profits. One suspects it will (inevitably) be the non-billionaire taxpayers who’ll be picking up the tab.

The Australian, 14 December 2010

In case you didn’t know, banks don’t give a stuff about anything but money.

Sure, people who work in banks can be quite nice, but the rules are made by banks, not people, and banks are there to make money out of money. Nothing personal, it’s what they do.

Okay, CEOs make the rules for the banks, but people who make more money during a toilet break than you do in a whole week (and they’ve got servants to do the wiping for them) do not care about anything but money or they’d simply buy an island and retire, because as soon as they stop caring about money they’d no longer be able to do their job, which is to run a bank which cares about nothing but money, and in the long run that’s probably a good thing.

Rich bastards.

The Australian, 13 December 2010

The UN is apparently very pleased that everyone has acknowledged that we really ought to get around to sorting out the whole global environmental catastrophe thing sometime soon. However, it does seem disturbingly reminiscent of a New Year’s resolution to lose weight without any intention of eating less or doing any exercise. Never mind, there’s always next year. Probably.

The Australian, December 10 2010

On behalf of the United States, the Australian government is getting tough on the guy who leaked the stuff about Arbib leaking stuff to the United States because leaking stuff from the United States about leaking stuff to the United States is bad, whereas just leaking stuff to the United States is okay because that happens all the time. No wonder this stuff is usually kept secret.