Boats, asylum seekers and tragedy have cornered the headlines, so the Rudd government's approval of mining-lease extensions on the environmentally stressed island has gone largely unnoticed

Amusing as the idea might be, there is an argument for handing Christmas Island to some other nation. After all, the journey by leaky boat to the mainland is a lot further than to this palm-fringed relic of the colonial past

Author Niccolo Dudd's new book, The Power of Positive Seeming, charts a road to success and popularity that anyone can follow. Those with no core principle but ambition will find it especially useful

There is probably no hope of helping Senator John Faulkner to grasp that those who question the warmist creed are not conspirators intent on seeing the planet fried to a carbonised crisp. Still, simple charity demands that one at least make the effort to help the anguished shed their delusions

Did you know the culling of feral camels is now the subject of a patent application? If not, you haven't been keeping up the latest warmist exercises in publicly funded farce and folly

As the global thermometer defies warmists' predictions and refuses to rise, those who fostered the Great Carbon Scare are switching tack. Now, rather than claiming to save the planet, the spin and patter is all about remedying social disadvantage. The curious case of Fish River's carbon credits illustrates the shift

"Brochuresmanship" is the order of the day whenever warmists are pushing their latest scheme to tame the carbon monster. When a potential investor sought further information on one such scheme -- an entirely reasonable request, given that real money would be involved -- the response was a stonewall

Creative interpretation of temperature records hasn't worked, so warmist dogma stresses a formerly denied relationship between CO2 and "extreme weather events". And if that doesn't work, let loose with the florid metaphors

Even the truest of true believers have lost hope that Julia Gillard can lead her party to anything but disaster.  It's wrong to enjoy the pain of others, but when those hoping for Divine intervention include the likes of Labor's professional apologists, their dismay is a delight to watch