‘Fly into the American air base of Tallil outside Nasiriya in central Iraq and the flight path is over the great ziggurat of Ur, reputedly the earliest city on earth. Seen from the base in the desert haze or the sand-filled gloom of dusk, the structure is indistinguishable from the mounds of fuel dumps, stores and hangars. Ur is safe within the base compound. But its walls are pockmarked with wartime shrapnel and a blockhouse is being built over an adjacent archaeological site.

G-8 countries backed down yesterday from their strong global warming stance, instead embracing President Bush's proposal to move toward unspecified “substantial cuts” in carbon emissions.

The "agreement says the G-8 countries will 'seriously' consider cutting emissions in half by 2050, but it sets no mandatory goals for all."

from the Sydney morning herald

loopholes prevent action on petrol

‘The national competition watchdog will remain toothless in its attempts to tackle alleged price gouging by oil companies because of loopholes in legislation and the failure of the Federal Government to outlaw cartels, a competition and fair trading expert says.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, "only needed to ask" for more power to pursue oil firms.

While Anglo-Australians can be proud of a long-time forgotten truth of “Fair Go” Australia for the privileged, today’s Australia is an unequal & unfair society. The myth of “Fair Go” Australia is just a shield, protecting Australia against criticism of Australia’s unfair treatments of Indigenous Australians & Australians from other minority groups.

‘In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld famously called the detainees at Guantánamo "the worst of the worst." General Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were "very dangerous people who would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." These claims were designed to justify locking up hundreds of men and boys for years in small cages like animals.

from Crikey …..

Doing Rudd slowly while the economy boils over

Christian Kerr writes:

If you’ve ever watched Jamie Oliver, you’ll know how all the different people in a commercial kitchen have to work in unison. And so it is running a nation. The economic Escoffiers and political patisseriers just can’t do their own thing.

‘Neo-cons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.

Little rattus is lying when he says that his new AWA fairness test is 'no different' from the old no disadvantage test.

The deceit of the prime rodent is evidenced by his assertion that it is 'silly' for workers to go to the High Court to appeal against the loss of penalty rates or other conditions under an AWA individual contract, whilst he refuses to give workers any alternative means of appealing a 'fairness test' ruling.

The fairness test is inferior in four key ways:

from the Centre for American Progress …..

An Inconvenient Summit

from Crikey …..

The hitch that might have freed Hicks

Greg Barns writes:

Let’s face it ….

Bushit’s Amerika is a proud nation of firsts.

Among them:

First in oil consumption:

Amerika burns up 20.7 million barrels per day, the equivalent of the combined oil consumption of China, Japan, Germany, Russia & India.

First in carbon dioxide emissions:

America is ruled by a president who absolutely refuses to bend to the will of the people & a congress that unashamedly ignores the citizenry's demands.

In the instances of Executive & Congressional &, too, as it relates to both parties; all discard the needs & wishes of the people in order to serve only corporate interests.

‘This is an essay born of despair, an angry cry from the heart about the impoverishment of mainstream public debate in this country, delivered with passion and eloquence.

The frustration is palpable as David Marr writes, "What's done most to gag democracy in this country is a sense that debating John Howard is futile".

The lout in the outhouse faced an international backlash today over his attempts to kill off global plans to tackle climate change.

His bushit majesty was accused of effectively tearing up international agreements to try to reduce carbon emissions.

He threw global efforts to control global warming into confusion by proposing an alternative to the United Nations process.