Is irony even the word for this? The president created a new online "open government" system in which people were free to brainstorm and vote proposals up or down. Far and away the leading proposal in the category of "Legal and Policy Challenges" as of the scheduled end of brainstorming was End Imperial Presidency.

As assassination plots go, James Purnell's move to finish off Gordon Brown must rank among the most dramatic in recent times - partly because he managed to keep it to himself, and partly because it was so direct and unequivocal.

While the Prime Minister was undoubtedly biting his fingernails to the quick in expectation that the local and Euro election results would prompt a move to oust him at some point over the next few days, he did not spot arch-Blairite Purnell creeping towards him in the undergrowth.

The Vatican appears to have an enduring vocation for Italian political and financial scandal. Secrecy and intrigue were the order of the day when American archbishop Paul Marcinkus held sway in the Bastion of Nicholas V, the medieval tower housing the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican's central bank.

from Crikey .....

A Crikey cure for outlandish executive pay

Adam Schwab writes:

Stretching out a hand to the Islamic world, President Barack Hussein Obama on Thursday invoked the Quran, his middle name and an American evenhandedness he says too few Muslims see. Obama drew a respectful response from unlikely places - an Iranian cleric called it "an initial step for removing misconceptions."

The president, speaking at a seat of Islamic learning, delivered a 55-minute speech that was heavily promoted, carefully watched and had as its guiding themes the need to "speak the truth" and "seek a new beginning."

For over a decade, Judid Angamarca lived in a wooden shack on stilts next to an old waste pit, where for years oil sludge from drilling was dumped.

The patch of land, the size of a tennis court, was cleaned and covered with earth in 1996. But it stubbornly refused to produce anything she tried to grow. Her three children played in the grass as babies; her animals roamed around, too. The residents living in and around San Carlos have long lived among the wells, pipes, and waste pits laid down for the oil bonanza in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

God doesn't need to save the Queen - she's got Barnaby

As the June 15th deadline nears for the Australian Government's decision to allow or disallow Chinalco to increase its stake in Rio Tinto, opposition to the move is playing out like a 19th century English comic opera, with Barnaby Joyce playing the "very model of a modern" toady of the Queen.

His crusade to protect Rio Tinto from the Chinese on the grounds of Australia's national interest is high farce-it is a British company, owned by Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth herself.

The history of Rio Tinto is full of ironies with regards to the flap over Chinalco's share bid:

A Travis County Constable used his Taser gun on a 72-year-old great grandmother after she refused to sign a speeding ticket.

The cop claims he was forced to defend himself because Kathryn Winkfein "got violent" in her refusal to sign the ticket.

The cop said she also used profanity, making him fear for his life.

Winkfein told an Austin news crew in the above video that the entire report was based on lies.

http://carlosmiller.com/2009/06/02/texas-deputy-uses-taser-on-72-year-old-great-grandmother/

Talks between Barack Obama and the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships over the past fortnight have unleashed a flood of media interest in the settlements Israel has been constructing on Palestinian territory for more than four decades.

The US president's message is unambiguous: the continuing growth of the settlements makes impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state, and therefore peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Peter Costello broke his self-imposed silence in parliament today to call Wayne Swan a moron as Treasurer extolled the today's national account figures.

The former Treasurer, now a backbencher, interjected with a blunt "Dope!"

"You're a moron," Mr Costello continued.

Kevin Rudd and Mr Swan could barely conceal their joy at today's GDP figures, which showed the economy growing and averting a recession in the technical sense.

The heated exchange, which came as the parties jostled over who had the best record as economic managers, was a throwback to another era when Mr Costello fired up regularly in question time.

from Wikileaks .....

The Australian Department of Health and Ageing (DHA) has set out to constrain the number of doctors graduating, despite supply shortages which have seen the country poaching medical staff from the developing world.

A FOI request executed on the DHA returned among other documents, the Howard era document C160.

A portion of that document is blacked out because the DHA claims it was contrary to public interest to reveal the information.

The DHA action serves to highlight the Deparment's political sensitivies.

Dick Cheney continues to insist that "enhanced interrogation" kept Americans safe and, until now, has had some success pushing this nonsense. But if you examine the timeline for Abu Zubaydah from the time he was captured until he was subjected to American-style torture you will realize that Dick Cheney is completely, utterly full of shit.

The Federal Government says it will consider a request by the US President, Barack Obama, for Australia to resettle some of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

It is believed the request was made a week ago by the US embassy to the Prime Minister's senior adviser on foreign affairs, defence and national security, Philip Green.

It is the third request by the US  but the first by Mr Obama for Australia to help close down the prison camp set up by the Bush administration to house captives in the so-called "war on terrorism''.

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

On 27 December, 2008, Israel launched a wide-scale military offensive against the population and infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. Operation 'Cast Lead' lasted 23 days and was the biggest Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip in nearly 42 years of occupation. 1,414 Palestinians were killed, including 313 children.1 The evidence obtained by PCHR strongly indicates that the overwhelming majority of these victims were civilians.