The FBI recently announced that its Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) has "reached its initial operating capacity". This vast new biometrics project, for which Lockheed Martin won a $1bn contract in 2008, encompasses not only fingerprints but also, possibly, such biometrics as iris scans, face recognition, bodily scars, marks and tattoos.

What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.

The war you have when you're not having a war...

The Opposition appears likely to support the Government's proposed company tax cut in the face of threats by the Greens to torpedo the measure.

The 1 per cent cut is part of the mining tax package that also includes a boost to superannuation contributions by business to employees.

It was negotiated prior to the election to defuse a backlash from the big miners over the mining super profits tax, which would have raised $60 billion more over a decade.

Greens leader Bob Brown has vowed to oppose the cut, saying the money would be better spent on social programs like dental care than giving it back to business.

Flanked by eight American flags, Mr Obama said that faced with the prospect of "violence on a horrific scale" in Libya, he felt compelled to act.

The Opposition has urged federal independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to "change teams" after three independents lost their seats in Saturday's New South Wales election.

The rural independents lost their seats to the Nationals in the Coalition's sweeping victory on Saturday night.

Among them was Mr Oakeshott's friend and successor, Peter Besseling, who lost his Port Macquarie seat with a swing of around 11 per cent to the Nationals.

The use of the death penalty globally is continuing to fall, an annual report by Amnesty International has said.

Although 23 countries carried out executions in 2010, four more than in 2009, the number of people executed dropped from at least 714 to at least 527, the rights group said.

But that figure does not include China, whose executions are thought to be more than all other countries put together.

Gabon last year became the 139th country to cease the practice.

Mongolia declared a moratorium on the death penalty.

AJDABIYA, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces retreated from this strategic city on Saturday, running for dozens of miles back along the coast with Libyan rebels in pursuit in their first major victory since American and European airstrikes began a week ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/26/opinion/26opchart.html?hp

During a door-knock in Balmain last week supporters of Verity Firth found themselves face-to-face with an ALP diehard who is so disillusioned with the party that she tried to close the door in their faces.

"But we're not Labor," they protested, "we're Verity Firth."

This is a party which is so on the nose and so demoralised that it dared not speak its name to the electors.

So how does it make a comeback from the political graveyard? Not easily, is the short answer.

On Wednesday, Ms Gillard descanted upon Mr Howard's brave and forward-thinking policies on climate change. "I remind the House that in 2007 Prime Minister Howard actually went to the election promising 'the most comprehensive emissions trading system anywhere in the world'!" she trilled, to an admiring rumble of hear-hears from the Government benches.

...

Ms Gillard's own attitude to the carbon-tax protestors, meanwhile, is complicated. On one hand, she utters "not a word of criticism about them". On the other, she simply cannot believe that Mr Abbott would hang out with such an "extremist", "sexist" bunch of weirdos. One cannot imagine Mr Howard offering such an equation, either.

Picture modified by Gus under fairness of news and current affair agreement satirical policy @2 #67.

From Glenn Milne

And the reason for that importance is that the leaders themselves have made it so. The carbon tax will destroy one or the other.