Pope 'refused audience for Rice'

Pope Benedict XVI refused a recent request by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq, Vatican sources say.

The Pope refused a request for an audience during the August holidays.

Senior Vatican sources told the BBC the Pope does not normally receive politicians on his annual holiday at the Castelgandolfo residence near Rome.

from Crikey

The Fed bails out the fat and the dodgy. And Wall Street

Glenn Dyer writes …..

Excuse me for being cynical, but the US Fed's 0.50% cut on the button overnight was nothing but a bail out of Wall Street urgers, dodgy London and European financiers and fat, complacent Australian banks.

Rice returns to Middle East talks

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to Jerusalem in another attempt to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.

Ms Rice is due to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The US is also giving financial assistance to build up the Palestinian Authority president's security forces.

The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.

Rudd brushes off Qld Cabinet misconduct allegations

Labor leader Kevin Rudd says if the Federal Government has concerns about his actions when he was a public servant in Queensland it should approach the police.

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce wants to table a nine-volume report into allegations against the Queensland Cabinet when Mr Rudd was chief of staff to then-premier Wayne Goss.

"We think it's a bad thing to say to our closest ally in her hour of need in Iraq that we're going to partially walk away from you."

john winston rattus

How comfy we are all in the United States, as we engage in living-room debates about the US occupation of Iraq, whether "we" are bringing them freedom and whether their freedom is really worth the sacrifice of so many of our men and women. We talk about whether war aims have really been achieved, how to exit gracefully, or whether we need a hyper-surge to finish this whole business once and for all.

It is true that the US is increasingly bellicose. The balance of power in
the Bush administration is shifting away from Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, who favours cautious engagement with Tehran, and towards
Vice-President Dick Cheney, who urges confrontation.

John Howard could stay in parliament for a very long time after he hands over the prime ministership, Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says.

"I wouldn't put it past the prime minister to still be in parliament for a long period of time."

Howard Could Stay In Parliament For Years

Gus: It doesn’t even seem to occur to these arrogant bastards that the voters of Bennelong might have other ideas.

Ever wonder why the supposedly 'fiscally Conservative' Republican Party ALWAYS increases the nation's debt? Ever wonder why, in 2007, the United States will spend nearly a trillion dollars ($700 billion-plus) to fight a relatively small band of sandal-wearing thugs living in caves?

Sadly, Americans seem not to wonder about much of anything ... but they should. They should, because so-called Conservative Republicans are robbing the taxpayer blind and using the money to undermine the welfare of the American people.

"A vote for me is a vote for the coalition.”

a retiring john winston rattus

Embracing Iraqi interests would mean giving up the Washington dream of a wide-open, Wild-West, virtually unregulated Iraqi economy bloated with energy revenues and ripe for the picking by international investors. Two out of three Iraqis want their energy sector -- the source of 90 percent of the country's revenues -- to be developed by the state. But the United States didn't invade Iraq just to have another Arab country with massive oil reserves controlled by a state oil company and huge subsidies propping up its citizens. So the conflict will continue.

Hockey dismisses 'flawed' WorkChoices findings

The Federal Government has rejected the findings of a new report into the impact of WorkChoices in services industries.

The study by Sydney University's Workplace Research Centre found that on average the earnings of retail workers have fallen 18 per cent and hospitality workers by 12 per cent, since the introduction of WorkChoices.

Yesterday, bushit’s latest loopy lapdog, General David Betrayus, lied to the world.

He used faulty statistics & cherry-picked intelligence to argue that American troops should stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Betrayus said we're making major progress & we have to stay the course. Sadly, independent assessments show that things in Iraq have gone from bad to worse (see below for more on how Betrayus stretched the truth).