Australian families have helped to drive Shell into the record books, after the oil giant posted a $A35.5 billion profit. 

Motoring group NRMA said the company owed a thank you note to Australian motorists, after it turned a profit of almost $4 million every hour of last year. 

Tony Blair has been holding discussions with some of his oldest allies on how he could mount a campaign later this year to become full-time president of the EU council, the prestigious new job characterised as "president of Europe".  

Baldrick: "I have ... a cunning plan. It's as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University. 

The thing is, we want all this land, but we don't want those Arab people what live on it.  

Alan Ramsey 

Before he died in November 1984, aged 83, Xavier Herbert gave an interview in central Australia in which, during 3½ hours, he talked of the widespread practice in Australia's north and north-west of what he called "gin rooting", as well as boasting of having been, as a young man in the 1920s, "the biggest gin rooter around".  

For the first time in 40 years Americans across the country are finding their homes on average are worth less today than they were just the year before. 

Foreclosures are rampant, up 75 percent nationally last year over 2006, and the number of lender-owned homes nearly doubled in the fourth quarter of 2007 over the same period last year.  

The 9/11 Commission has long been suspected of being a bipartisan whitewash of the Bush Administration failures in preventing 9/11 and its botched immediate follow-up after the event.  

Brazil's Government is unwilling and unable to halt destruction in the Amazon rainforest despite emergency measures it announced last week to curb rising deforestation, environmental expert say. 

High commodity prices and increased land use elsewhere in Brazil are driving ranchers and farmers deeper into the Amazon in search of cheap land, environmentalists say.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared his support for John McCain's presidential bid, handing the Republican front-runner a prized endorsement ahead of the state's key primary.

Governor Schwarzenegger told a press conference he was backing Senator McCain after touring a solar technology plant in Los Angeles together with the Arizona senator and former Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani.

from Crikey ….. 

Look at Mick Keelty's new 5 year contract negotiated just before the election - making sure he was a winner either way.  

Giuliani expected to endorse Florida winner McCain 

Rudy Giuliani is expected to throw his weight behind John McCain's campaign for the Republican nomination after the senator for Arizona won a convincing victory in the Florida primary to become the clear front runner. 

from Crikey ….. 

A sorry tale of politics, pragmatism and principles 

Editor of The National Indigenous Times Chris Graham writes: 

The Republican contest for Florida ended in acrimony on Monday as the two leading candidates traded attacks, aggressively courting voters across the Florida peninsula in a primary battle that could produce a clear front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination before a virtual national primary next week.

In delivering his seventh & final State of the Union address, bushit faced a steep challenge in persuading Americans to heed his words on the war, economic policy or any other issue, according to administration officials, lawmakers & outside observers, according to the Washington Post.  

Openly celebrating George Bush's last state of the union address, Democrats in Congress last night dismissed his entreaties on tax cuts and government wiretaps but left the president some room on a $150bn economic aid package.  

Economy, War To Dominate State of Union

Bush's Challenge May Be Getting People to Listen

For years, President Bush and his advisers expressed frustration that the White House received little credit for the nation's strong economic performance because of public discontent about the Iraq war.