A good carbon tax day. At last. A news day where the carbon tax debate does not feature. And that’s good news for the Government. One more brief flurry while the necessary legislation is pushed through the Parliament and then silence is the best tactic.

It is the reality of the tax and its offsets when they are operating that will deliver the verdict – not the talking preamble which people are heartily sick of.

Automatic advertising placements. From the SMH website this morning reporting on problems with banking system payments. Enough said.

They wouldn’t would they? Financial markets have so far taken a rather benign view of the apparent stalemate in negotiations between a Republican dominated House of Representatives and a Democrat Party President over legislation to allow further government borrowings.

That the US Government would start defaulting on paying its bills just seems so preposterous that the money men don’t think it could actually happen. After all, apart from a short lived period in the 1990s, the cap on borrowings has always been increased just in time so why would this be different?

Well those Tea Party people apparently. The idea of reducing the budget deficit by spending cuts without any tax increases for even the richest of Americans and largest of corporations has this time been tacked onto the talks about the total borrowing limit.

Republican congressmen concerned about their own re-election don’t want to be seen to compromise in a way that would see the Tea Party lot turn against them in voting next year. For their part Democrats are just as determined  not to vote for the destruction of much of the national health and social welfare program. If they did it is their positions that would become vulnerable at Democrat primary elections.

So perhaps, just perhaps, we are about to see a new form of political madness that throws the world financial system into turmoil despite the market belief that everything will end up okay.

Australia’s own poker game. In Australia, the Labor Government is engaged in its own game of poker caused by a commitment to return the budget to surplus in a hurry. Wage negotiations with public service unions over pay rises and changes in conditions have all but broken down. Strike action that would affect welfare and other payments is very much on the agenda.

Cheap shot at the GG. Put a person in a uniform and they begin acting like a dictator’s storm trooper. The latest example is the fuss caused by the Governor General being ushered through security at an airport by her Federal Police escort in a way that upset a security guard. What a nonsense! It’s nearly as stupid as the time one of these ignorant guards insisted that the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea take his shoes off. And what is it about the News Limited tabloids that sees them report the incident in a way that is critical of the GG?

A world game scandal update. Turkey’s football federation, reports the BBC, has postponed the start of the season by a month amid an investigation into alleged match-fixing. The federation said it had decided to begin the season on 9 September rather than 5 August as planned.

The probe has already resulted in detention of 31 suspects, including the president of league champion Fenerbahce, Aziz Yildirim. Police say bribery and intimidation were used to fix 19 games.