CUT & PASTE Meanwhile, Andrew Neil gives a brief masterclass in how to speak about so-called Islamic State
John Stone in The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday: For the past fortnight I have watched with bemusement the public debate about "tax reform". While it has ranged across all media, including this newspaper, nowhere has it been pursued with more messianic zeal than in The Australian, a newspaper that I read assiduously. It all began on Sunday,   November 1, when Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sinodinos was interviewed at length on Sky News's Australian Agenda program. Speaking with, obviously, the Prime Minister's undoubted approval, he urged the need for "tax reform" involving a major Goods and Services Tax increase. For the next 10 days the ensuing crusade (it was nothing less) supporting this daft idea was pursued in "The Oz" via front-page articles, opinion pieces and, above all, editorials.
Andrew Bolt on his blog yesterday: Former Treasury secretary John Stone is right. 
How's that crusade looking? From The Australian's editorial on   November 12: Tax reform should not be code for increasing the tax burden but, rather, simplifying and changing the tax mix to sharpen the incentive to work and save.
At least Stone is a reader of taste: â€¦ The Australian, a newspaper that I read assiduously.
The Herald Sun yesterday: Little known Victorian MP Darren Chester has emerged as an unlikely Canberra sex symbol. The 48-year-old marathon-running Nationals MP has developed a reputation as parliament's biggest heart-throb among politicians, staffers and the press gallery. While politics has long been referred to as "show business for ugly people", Mr Chester is bucking the trend by being dubbed the "George Clooney of Gippsland" by his local radio station. Traralgon-based TR FM Morning Crew host Mikkayla Mossop told her listeners recently that all the girls in the station's office think he's "a bit of a spunk".
With tongue in cheek, Mo Dawah on Twitter yesterday: Let us not give in to ISIS's divide and rule tactics by opposing them.
The Huffington Post UK yesterday: Andrew Neil delivered a blistering rejoinder to the Islamic State militants that scarred Western Europe last week, opening Thursday's BBC1 show This Week with a near two-minute denunciation of the "Islamist scumbags" that killed 132 people in the French capital to "prove the future belongs to them rather than a civilisation like France". "I can't say I fancy their chances," mocked Neil, before listing the cornerstones of French civilisation, from Monet to Descartes, Rousseau to Camus, Berlioz to Satie, Daft Punk to Zizou Zidane â€¦ "Liberte, egalite, fraternise and creme Brulee." "Versus what?" he asked. "Beheadings, crucifixions, amputations, slavery, mass murder, medieval squalor and a death cult barbarity that would shame the Middle Ages. I think the outcome is pretty clear to everyone but you. You will lose. In a thousand years' time, Paris, that glorious city of light, will still be shining bright as will every other city like it. And you will be as dust, along with the ragbag of fascist Nazis and Stalinists that previously dared to challenge democracy and failed."
The Age website asking the big questions in a survey yesterday: When is it OK to go outside in a bathrobe? It's OK if you're not a prime minister; It's OK within a spa or on the way to/from a hotel pool; It's OK if you're picking up the morning paper from the footpath or bringing in the wheelie bin; It's OK at any time; It's never, ever, OK.
The Guardian Australia tackling a warm Sydney day yesterday:Weather - it happened and we live blogged it.