I had an uneasy feeling this morning (SMH 01/09/05). I agreed with Miranda from the start. All those pollies who blamed the media for the demise and suicide attempt of former Liberal Leader in New South Wales, John Brogden, were just trying to shift the centre of reality. Some pollies, including our “there-is-a-lot-of-laughing-in politics

Maybe it was just the August winds or the prime meanster simply laying false trails again, but someone sure put something in the Liberals’ drinks this past couple of weeks.

When federal liberal backbencher & former leadership aspirant, Bronwyn ‘Boadicea’ Bishop, recently posited that the recruitment age for the ADF be lowered to 14, her suggestion received all the serious attention that it deserved.

In his novel “2007

Pat Robertson’s basic assumptions echo those of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, including that the ends (the dominance of the United States) justify virtually any means & that securing oil reserves is tantamount to preserving US national security.

The Bush administration has declared that previous restrictions outlawing assassinations as a legitimate US foreign policy instrument were not relevant to a nation at war. The administration has resorted to the notion that all is fair in war to justify pre-emptive murder by the United States & Israel, even when the targets could have been captured alive.

In the wake of the dreadful Bali bombings that killed 202 people in October, 2002, including 88 Australians, the Australian government introduced stringent new anti-terrorist measures to minimize the possibility of the third world war, the “war on terrorism

 Reprinted from Margo Kingston's Webdiary, this  piece serves well as an overview of the last few months of blogging

While Australians have sat in their trees like manna-gum-'stoned' koalas, the economic landscape has changed around them dramatically.  The new King and Queen of the Southern Defence Colony, affectionately known as Condy and Rummy, will be crowned by Alexander Downer in Adelaide this November, with most of us none the wiser.

‘Derek Burney, Pat Carney, Allan Gotlieb, Simon Reisman and Gordon Ritchie were key members of the negotiating team that forged the 1988 free-trade agreement between Canada and the United States.

‘Thomas Friedman is a famous columnist on the New York Times. He has been described as "a guard dog of US foreign policy". Whatever America's warlords have in mind for the rest of humanity, Friedman will bark it.

He boasts that "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist".

He promotes bombing countries and says world war three has begun.