Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."

And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon.

The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.

Europeans angry after Bush climate speech 'charade'

· US isolated as China and India refuse to back policy

America’s hired guns in Iraq have been called ‘the coalition of the billing’, but Blackwater mercenaries are accused of more than just taking the money.

The company, based near the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, was co-founded by Erik Prince, a billionaire right-wing fundamentalist. At its HQ, Blackwater has trained more than 20,000 mercenaries to operate as freelancers in wars around the world.

Howard announces $1m for Xmas parade

Prime Minister John Howard has announced that the Federal Government will provide $1 million in funding for an inaugural Christmas parade to be held in Sydney.

The parade will be similar to Thanksgiving and Christmas parades held annually in America and will be held on November 25 this year.

In a statement, Mr Howard says that the parade aims to "strengthen a sense of community by encouraging people to join together to celebrate the holiday season."

Because an empire must, by definition, rely on coercion and murder, any given day in the rule of empire is immoral and detestable for those who genuinely value liberty and peace. But certain days are worse than others. In terms of what it bodes for our future - and for the future of the world - yesterday was a particularly awful day in the United States Senate, now controlled and led by the imperial Democrats.

If there are any people who still believed that the Democrats would represent a fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy, they have no reason to believe it any longer.

There are simply too many instances of absurd foreign policy produced by our government (and others) not too conclude that the production process itself produces continuing debacle. Any history book witnesses the senseless results. A centenarian can look back at two massively engulfing world wars and such other large-scale conflicts as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iran-Iraq War, the French Indochina War, the French-Algerian War, the Russian-Afghanistan War, the Franco-Spanish-Moroccan (Riffian) War, and now the Iraq War.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie ... The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state."

- Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945

Turd blossom is so well known as a fly hunter among his White House staff, says Snow, that somebody "made him White House fly swatters."

George W. Bush delivered his next to the last annual address to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.

Taking the same podium that he used five years ago to condemn the world body to “irrelevance” if it failed to rubber stamp his plans for a war of aggression against Iraq, Bush cast his regime in Washington as the world’s greatest champion of human rights and its most generous and selfless benefactor.

PRIME RATTUS:

Dear “Heather” whoever you are.

Thank you for your aggressive, offensive & unhelpful email letter.

In the first instance, I thought your email was just another unsolicited piece of spam: a bogus attempt to extract valuable information from an unsuspecting user of internet-based services, such as PayPal.

However, after attempting to login to my PayPal account & discovering that it had indeed been frozen without explanation, I’m now 80% sure that your email is the real McCoy.

Pacific Highway a priority, PM tells Vic

Victoria will not miss out on funding in any pre-election road-funding blitz, Prime Minister John Howard said.

Responding to a News Ltd report that his government would next week announce a $5 billion roads package that snubs Victoria, Mr Howard said Victoria would be "fairly treated".

But he refused to commit to any new roads funding for the state, instead nominating the Pacific Highway, linking Sydney and Brisbane, as being a priority.

A bill introduced this week by Australia's Parliament would give the Australian federal police the power to control which sites can and cannot be viewed by Australian Web surfers.

Introduced on Thursday, the bill--titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007 - would empower the federal police to alter the "blacklist" of sites that are currently prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.