I'll help battlers, promises Howard …..

• Howard pledges to help battlers if re-elected
• Howard "trying to have it both ways", says Rudd
• Election could be called as early as today

John Howard has pledged to do more to help battlers if he is re-elected as he moved yesterday to clear the decks ahead of officially calling the election as early as today.

Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is 'a Nightmare' …..

In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration's handling of the war "incompetent" and said the result was "a nightmare with no end in sight."

US stands firm on climate policy despite Gore's success …..

The Bush administration says it will not change its policy on climate change, despite the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former US Vice President Al Gore.

US Stands Firm On Climate Policy Despite Gore's Success

US rejects Russian missile call …..

Talks between the US and Russia about a US anti-missile system in Europe have ended acrimoniously and without any sign of progress.

The US rejected Russian appeals at the talks in Moscow to halt the scheme.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country would take steps to neutralise the threat posed by the missile system if it went ahead.

from Crikey…..

If you do the crime, Johnnie

Chris Graham, Editor of the National Indigenous Times, writes:

Let's talk about John Winston Howard, and his 11th hour epiphany that the "Aborigine people" really aren’t that bad after all.

The main things chameleon species do have in common is their foot structure, their eyes, their lack of ears, and their tongue.

There must be some logic to building the United States' - and the world's - largest embassy in the world's 44th largest nation, coming somewhere after Nepal and Uganda.

But the logic seems apparent only to the Bush administration, so work plods forward on our Vatican-sized fortress embassy in Baghdad. The massive $600 million project is behind schedule and nearly $150 million over budget. It was conceived in the heady days when the Bush administration believed we would be welcomed as liberators, the war would pay for itself and an efficient government of pro-U.S. Iraqi exiles would have taken over.

PM does an about-face on reconciliation

Prime Minister John Howard has delivered an extraordinary election eve mea culpa to indigenous Australians, promising a referendum to recognise them formally in the constitution.

After years of refusing to apologise to Aboriginal Australians over their past treatment, Mr Howard admitted he had failed to recognise the importance of symbolism in healing the rift.

In an interview last Friday, President Bush dismissed rumours of a US-planned attack on Iran as "baseless gossip" and "empty propaganda".

PM promises referendum

Prime Minister John Howard has announced his plans to hold a referendum to formally recognise indigenous Australians in the Constitution.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute Mr Howard promised to hold the referendum within 18 months of the election - if the Coalition is returned to office - which would incorporate a Statement of Reconciliation into the Constitution's preamble.

Mr Howard acknowledges he has often "struggled" with the issue of reconciliation during his time as prime minister.

Army Defends Recruitment Standards

from the washington post …..

The Army last year again increased the number of its recruits
who have prior criminal records by granting them special exceptions.

The Pentagon's top personnel official defended the policy, saying it's so
stringent that many in Congress would have difficulty getting into the
military today, too, because of things they did in their youth.

2007 Australian Citizenship test

* Do you understand the meaning, but are unable to explain the origin of, the term 'died in the arse'?

* What is a "bloody little beauty?"

* Are these terms related: chuck a sickie; chuck a spaz; chuck a U-ey?

"I often ask myself whether the Mabo decision in 1992 or the Wik decision in 1996 would be decided by the High Court the same way today," he said.

After listing a series of developments that emerged from dissenting judgments, including expanded freedoms of the press, free speech and rights to a lawyer, Justice Kirby said: "The answer to all of these questions of whether such cases would be answered the same way today seems to be: probably not.

If the hype about global warming is top of the charts for massive public deception and the public being completely led astray on hype, exaggeration and political opportunism, surely the argument about water can't be far behind.

On the one hand you hear about drought, well what could you expect.

We, after all, are a dreadfully dry continent.

The reality is Sydney gets more rain than London.

In fact it would be more truthful to say there's water everywhere.

But then we're told, well it's too dear to get it from A to B.