’The entire world was shocked beyond belief when the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon building were struck on 9/11 by US planes hijacked by Arab young men. There was sympathy for the victims and justifiable anger in America.

Dow Jones & Co said on Thursday it did not know that one of the people named to protect its editorial independence after it becomes part of News Corp runs a foundation that received a donation pledge of $2.5 million (1.2 million pounds) from News Corp.

Rupert Murdoch's global media conglomerate selected Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nicholas Negroponte to be part of the five-member special committee that will oversee the editorial independence of Dow Jones's news operations including the Wall Street Journal.

Gordon Brown told George Bush this week that Britain has a "shared destiny" with the United States" founded on "shared values". Even as Brown spoke, the consequences of those "shared values" in Iraq were spelt out in horrific detail by a report from Oxfam and over 100 other NGOs.

‘Police and security agencies will be given unprecedented "sneak and peek" powers to search the homes and computers of suspects without their knowledge under legislation to go before Federal Parliament next week.

The extensive powers - which also give federal police the right to monitor communications equipment without an interceptions warrant - come amid growing public disquiet about counter-terrorism powers following the bungled handling of the Mohamed Haneef case.

Poor Keelty has really lost it ….

Is this really the man who is supposed to be keeping us safe?

Whilst his mate Joe took the decision to release Haneef, who he could have detained indefinitely given his authoritarian powers under the Discrimination Act, the chief feral footpad moved effortlessly from ridiculous to incredible mode today, alleging that the innocent arch-terrorist, who is no longer here, could still face charges!!

Talk about “Commissioner Wrongways” …..

‘Parenti explains our founders created a system of checks and balances by separating government into executive, legislative and judicial branches, even though the idea sounded better than it actually was. Today it's barely noticeable with two branches overtly supporting the chief executive's right to do as he pleases with no effective check on his power or lawlessness. One reason is because of who gets to Congress and the courts. They're mostly plutocracy members in good standing there to take care of their own. Half of Senate members are millionaires, and one critic believes the lower body is more "a House of Lords" than a House of Representatives.

OK, so let’s get this right.

Joe says that he cancelled Haneef’s visa because of a suspicious chatroom discussion between him & his brother in India & his alleged attempted “hasty” departure from Awstralya.

The information that Joe released today was in the hands of Keelty’s feral flatfoots from the day they arrested Haneef. That information was tabled in court during Haneef’s bail application & was also available to “Buggsy”, the DPP.

‘Terror generally kills innocent people, something no decent-minded person can accept, but what is always forgotten in the press and government treatment of terror as something alien and unimaginably bad is that war in the contemporary world does precisely the same thing."

The president of the United States just issued a public pronouncement declaring, as a matter of U.S. policy, that a single man has the authority to detain any person anyplace in the world and subject him or her to secret interrogation techniques that aren't torture but that nonetheless can't be revealed, as long as that person is thought to be a "supporter" of an organization "associated" in some unspecified way with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and as long he thinks that person might know something that could "assist" us.

In the second quarter, refiners bought crude oil at lower prices and sold gasoline at record high prices. As a result, companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Valero could see record profits when the industry reports earnings this week.

Exxon (Charts, Fortune 500), which actually refines more barrels of oil than it pumps, could see over $11 billion in earnings, which would be the biggest quarterly profit in corporate history.

Yes Gus, the rats are all scurrying away …..

Rattus & Ruddock repeatedly claimed that they had no responsibility for Haneef’s treatment & that the case was simply in the hands of the police & the courts.

Time & again, however, Rattus, Darth Ruddock, & other rodents from the government made prejudicial comments against Haneef & declared that his arrest was a “wake-up call” to the Australian public that the “war on terror” must be continued indefinitely.

‘The House Judiciary Committee did its duty yesterday, voting to cite Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff, for contempt. The Bush administration has been acting lawlessly in refusing to hand over information that Congress needs to carry out its responsibility to oversee the executive branch and investigate its actions when needed. If the White House continues its obstruction, Congress should use all of the contempt powers at its disposal.

‘Behind all this is a perception that nuclear power is needed to help fight climate change. But there's little chance that nuclear plants could be built quickly enough to make much difference. The existing 104 nuclear plants in the U.S., which supply roughly 20% of the nation's electricity, are old and nearing the end of their useful lives. Just to replace them would require building a new reactor every four or five months for the next 40 years. To significantly increase the nation's nuclear capacity would require far more.

‘Cheney's inability to tap Iran's resources has long been a source of frustration. During the administration of Gerald Ford, Cheney pushed a reluctant Ford to sell Tehran Westinghouse technology that would have allowed Iran to reprocess plutonium and obtain uranium for a nuclear energy programme. The deal foundered in 1979 under the Carter administration, when the Shah was overthrown.

‘Although Donald Rumsfeld claimed that "we don’t seek empires" and "we’re not imperialistic," I don’t hesitate to use the terms. Not only did the 9/11 Commission Report conclude that "the American homeland is the planet," it referred to the Department of Defense as "the behemoth among federal agencies. With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire."