‘Stung by growing criticism of his Iraq policy which has
manifested itself in all-time low public opinion ratings, President Bush last
month embarked on a tour in which he delivered five speeches outlining his
"Plan for Victory" in Iraq, as well as offering a defense of his
decision to invade Iraq. "It is true that much of the intelligence [used
to justify the invasion] turned out to be wrong", Mr. Bush said in the
fourth of these speeches. "As President, I'm responsible for the decision
to go into Iraq." 

From the ABC

Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has announced the sale of 350,000 tonnes of Australian wheat to Iraq worth up to $70 million.

Mr Vaile made the announcement as he and other Nationals
parliamentarians addressed a rally of around 400 farmers in the New
South Wales central-west.

I forgot if this already appears on the site... But I drew this just when Mr Vaile was leaving Australia for negociations with Iraq... Not hard to guess the result...

From the ABC

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says he supports a decision by the United States to deliver nuclear technology to India.

Australia has ruled out selling uranium to India because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Prime Minister John Howard is due to visit the country next week, but Mr Downer says this development will not cause discomfort.

"We've considered very carefully over the last few months the American proposal for this agreement that President Bush has signed with the Indians, and our view of it is that it's a good step forward... 

Gus radiations:

 From the ABC

The Federal Opposition says cables warning of alleged kickbacks in AWB's wheat contracts tendered to the Cole inquiry yesterday were sent directly to the Prime Minister nearly six years ago.

Labor says the cables dispute Prime Minister John Howard's claim that the first he knew of information suggesting AWB was paying kickbacks to Iraq was long after the oil-for-food program had ended.

Mr Howard has repeatedly told Parliament that he had no knowledge of suggestions AWB might be paying kickbacks until the matter was investigated by the United Nations.

 
‘Never before has one word, or
its relentless repetition, done so much for one man as the word `terror’
(`terra` in Texanese) has for this Texan from Crawford that now resides in the
White House. No other single word, it seems, is so much responsible for Bush`s
continued fame among certain naive American quarters. 

Whether it is the external or
internal policies of this administration, the word terra remains the
cornerstone of all its past, present and future plans of action. Be it
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Katrina, domestic elections, passing of sham
legislation, the Guantanamo Gulag, the discovery of torture dungeons or the
scandal of spying on own citizens, no crisis has ever been strong enough to
withstand the magic mantra of terra, terra, terra. 

‘The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7,
2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into
abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that
Mora’s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and
persistent. Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib
prison, in April, 2004, Mora warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the
consequences of President Bush’s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the
Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and “outrages upon personal
dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” 

Thank you for attending this State Liberal Party Fundraiser- the more money raised for them through my name, the more I own them.

Most have you have probably been wondering if I work for Prime Minister Howard or President Bush.  The truth is that I actually work for both, in that I'm "on secondment" to the White House.  It must give the listener great reassurance to know that when I speak it is the voice of authority that you hear.

We had to start the War On Terror- without new markets to exploit the US economy would implode within decades, taking all the money we'd invested in Carlyle and Halliburton with it  As long as the war doesn't end, everything will be fine.

‘"Terrorism" has been made The Issue of the
Year, for which Americans are expected to tighten their belts, pay countless
billions in taxes so the U.S. government and its allies can arm to the teeth,
and suffer an escalating repression of their liberties. 

Yet who the terrorists are
supposed to be remains vague and shadowy. Their only apparent common
characteristic is that they are swarthy and foreign; no Nordics need apply. 

‘Acting with impunity and wielding the moral authority of
pedophiles, Bush and his fellow Neocons have decimated what was left of
America's good name while severely crippling our nation’s capacity for
advancing and protecting human rights. Setting a sanguineous course in their
reckless pursuit of wealth and power, they have afflicted humankind with their
perverse agenda. With alarming consistency, these sociopaths have demonstrated
their utter disregard for humanity and the well-being of our planet. 

While the US has a history of
imperialism, deep cruelty, and mass murder, including slaughtering one million
civilians in the conquest of the Philippines, legalizing the institution of
slavery, and committing the Native American genocide, by World War II America
had arguably begun to demonstrate a reasonable level of commitment to
humanitarian ideals. While it was a long, painful process, Abolitionists, Women
Suffragists, Populists, Labor Activists, Civil Rights Protestors, and the like
forced the United States to strive for truly noble causes. From the end of
World War II up until the 1960's, one could reasonably conclude that the nation
primarily responsible for the defeat of militaristic fascism in both Europe and
Asia had earned a degree of moral authority, in spite of its remaining flaws.’ 

‘Britain's New Statesman magazine
has put together a powerful package of stories detailing how the government of
George W. Bush's beloved disciple, Tony Blair, is "persecuting innocent
people, tearing up our freedoms and undermining the judiciary." The basis
of the stories is a new, blistering report from Amnesty International on the
degraded state of civil liberties in the UK today.’ 

Blair's
Dark Kingdom

‘The congressional elections this coming November is the
last chance for Americans to reaffirm the separation of powers that is the
basis of their civil liberties. Unless the voters correct their mistake of
putting both the executive and legislative branches in the hands of the same
party and deliver the House or the Senate to the Democrats, there is nothing on
the domestic scene to stand in the way of more power, and less accountability,
being accumulated in the executive. 

The Democrats have been a totally
ineffective opposition and might not inspire any voter response other than
apathy. Rather than vote for a cowardly party that is afraid to defend the
Constitution, voters might simply not vote at all.