Either France and the rest of us can continue on as we have, with every day Ground Hog Day in Guernica and no response better than an impotent snivel, or Western civilisation can summon the righteous anger necessary to win, not merely endure

If the Opposition Leader can't grasp that tougher, tighter times are upon us, he's a fool. If he persists in blocking and harrying every single effort to batten down the economy, knowing full well the risk of recession, he's a scoundrel

The murderer Monis was subsidised by the public purse, both his living expenses and prodigious legal costs, right up until the moment a gunshot ended his life in the Lindt coffee shop. Someone needs to explain how that could have happened, and it had better not be one of the careerist enablers who made the welfare system his comrade in arms

You can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps, so a Sydney University professor ranting about infernal Prime Minister 666 in the Guardian Australia says everything worth knowing about both. Still, while it's rude to scoff at the afflicted, there are times you just can't help it

The countries whose citizens were murdered should confront Moscow with an ultimatum and a pledge: hand over those responsible, or see Russia deemed a pariah state with all of the consequences that follow

Think of the ocean between Australia and Christmas Island as The Julia Triangle -- a death zone where the PM's own policies have claimed at at least 1000 lives. Now, having lured so many to their watery graves, she doesn't want to know about it

Shrieking about Tony Abbott's "sexism" has fired up her peanut gallery, but it cannot hide the AWU scandal's damage to both our Prime Minister's authority and Australia's relations with the wider world. Richard Nixon could have warned her

Abortion is figuring, as always, in the presidential race. Neither Obama nor Biden appears to have noticed, but they appear to disagree with each other -- and maybe Obama with himself

Memo to Allah: Please instruct your adherents to read up on the Enlightment. Oh, and while you're at it, remind Western governments that the right to annoy, ridicule, vex and infuriate is a freedom worth defending