The Therapeutic Goods Administration has let Australians down ... again ....

Can the government's health watchdog really be trusted to provide authoritative advice for Australian women on the safety of breast implants? The crisis in confidence about the implants comes at a time when faith in the calibre of government advice is lacking and the level of trust between the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the public is shaky at best.

Fairfax reports on a company, Serco, whose primary aim is to punish refugees in its care:

How we Australians love a winner. Especially if that winner triumphs against the odds. And so we celebrated wildly when the erstwhile captain, Ricky Ponting, dived across the crease to seal his first Test century in two years – an act of dogged determination that held the added advantage of figuratively raising a big rude finger to a legion of doubters who blamed him for the demise of modern Australian cricket.

This Wednesday, January 11, 2012 marks ten years since the opening of Guantanamo Bay, and although in 2009, President Obama announced its closure within the year, it still remains open. 

A Sydney-based friend wrote the following letter to members of the Labor Party in early November 2011:

“Dear Member

What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran?

The Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, has secretly pushed for increased surveillance by federal police intelligence officers of environmental activists who have been protesting peacefully at coal-fired power stations and coal export facilities.

WE NEED YOUR HELP.

We urgently need you to write in support of the SBS series “The Promise”

In a scorching complaint that cites internal company memos, parents say their child died because Johnson & Johnson issued a "phantom or stealth recall" of tainted Children's Tylenol, buying up the drugs from stores on the sly without issuing a recall, "so the general public, ignorant of the dangers, would continue buying and administering these brand name drugs to their children."

Something is seriously amiss when the former prime minister, John Howard, asserts that parents should be concerned about "one-sided science" being taught in our schools.

Leave aside that Howard was endorsing a new children's book on climate change by Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist whose sceptical representations of climate science for adults seem driven more by a conservative ideology.

Offshore processing is not a solution and will not stop people dying at sea.

The Prime Minister has dismissed a call by the Labor elder Bob Hawke to slash the power of unions within the ALP.

Julia Gillard defended the factional and union influences that were responsible for the destruction of Kevin Rudd's leadership in 2010.