The debate over climate change in Australia could be seen as evidence of the existence of parallel universes.  

It is as if Australia and 191 other countries, including China and India, never signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, as if the new Howard Government never signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. In this universe, Australia is a leader on climate change. 

Top federal police officers told the Howard government on the same day it cancelled Mohamed Haneef’s visa that their investigations showed there was nothing to suggest the Gold Coast doctor’s involvement in violence or terrorism in Australia.

On August 9th, 1945, two-thirds of Japan's Catholics were annihilated. Nagasaki's historic importance as the center of Japanese Christianity and openness to the West, one would think, would have spared it from being targeted by a Western Christian nation.

world war III; the spectre of lenin, hitler, communists, fascists….. 

What is bushit thinking? 

Today he spoke to the Heritage Foundation & attacked Democrats in Congress for being responsible for everything but hair lice. He is fighting evil - why don’t Democrats understand that? 

You see, today the American government tells us that it can spy on us whenever and however it likes.

It can read our e-mail and postal mail, track our financial records, pry into our medical histories, force libraries to turn over lists of the books we read, force internet service providers to turn over records of our surfing habits, and tap our phones and record our calls.  

from Crikey  

"Me Too" gibes still not hurting Rudd 

Minister for Vocational and Further Education Andrew Robb knows a thing or two about losing unlosable elections. He was at the helm of the John Hewson Liberal Party campaign when Paul Keating came from behind for Labor's "sweetest victory of all."

White 'not interested' as Jones firms for Wallabies 

Former Australia coach Alan Jones has formally applied for the vacant Wallabies post, but South Africa's World Cup-winning boss Jake White is a non-starter. 

from the Centre for American Progress 

Candidates 'should declare sexual preference' 

Not to stoke any of the inane conspiracy theories running wild on the Internet, but if Osama bin Laden wasn’t on the payroll of Lockheed Martin or some other large defense contractor, he deserves to have been.  

Critics Turn Out To Protest Media Consolidation 

In a written response to questions from Senate Democrats yesterday, Attorney General nominee, Michael Mukasey, refused to say explicitly whether he believed waterboarding to be torture.

from Crikey .....

Alex Mitchell writes

Liberal federal Cabinet ministers, backbenchers and hard-heads in the Liberal Party organisation were dismayed and annoyed by the pathetic performance of Treasurer Peter Costello in yesterday's live debate with Labor’s shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan.