Friday 29th of March 2024

all flim, no flam .....

all flim, no flam .....

After watching President Obama's state of the union, plus the first Republican response to it by Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and the second response by Rep Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, chair of the Tea Party caucus in Congress, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that if nations survive and prosper by realistic assessment of their problems, America really is finished.

Obama surely instructed his speech writers to capitalise on his successful outing to the memorial in Tucson, where he gave a speech that essentially reprised the campaign rhetoric of 2008 that got him elected in the first place. The result in Congress last night was the quintessence of gasbaggery.

poker davos...

poker devos

 

The worst of the global economic crisis may be over, but it's a weary world converging on Davos, the sleepy town in the Swiss mountains hosting the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It's a world suffering from "global burnout syndrome", too weak to tackle another global shock, says Professor Klaus Schwab, the man who invented the annual meeting of the world's top business leaders and politicians 41 years ago.

principle ahead of politics .....

principle ahead of politics .....

 

A key resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict is now before the UN Security Council. Largely echoing stated US policy, the resolution embraces negotiations, endorses the creation of a Palestinian state and demands an immediate halt to Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But even though the resolution echoes US policy, President Obama is under pressure to veto the UN resolution from forces in Washington who want to protect the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

joe disaster...

joedisaster

The Federal Opposition is intensifying its campaign against a flood levy to pay for the Queensland flood crisis.

The Government is still working out how to pay for its share of the rebuilding cost, while sticking to its commitment to return the budget to surplus in 18 months' time.

It is considering the idea of a flood levy and Prime Minister Julia Gillard is promising a decision "soon".

But Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey is urging the Government to focus on budget cuts, and his argument is two-fold.

ring tones .....

ring tones .....

The political fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal has intensified amid claims of a Scotland Yard cover-up and friendly dinners between Downing Street and the Murdoch family.

Despite the resignation of Andy Coulson as Downing Street's director of communications, the links between the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Rupert Murdoch's empire have once again been thrown into the spotlight just days before the media tycoon is due to fly to London.

alone together .....

home alone .....

Just two text-ready words may have punctured the delusion of cyberspace 'connectedness' that has gripped a twittering new world: 'Alone Together'. They are the title of a book from a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has finally plucked up the courage to tell us something we all secretly know: we are losing our minds to a mania for the social media of Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging.

We are in danger of relinquishing our humanity to "social robotics" and a "new social confusion." We are swapping real life for vicarious life.

hopeless vs hopelessness .....

hopeless vs hopelessness .....

This is a rare election in that we already know the result. No one on either side of the political fence believes Labor can win. There are increasingly few who believe it will be anything but a Liberal landslide of historical proportions.

It would seem natural in those circumstances for debate to centre only on what a new coalition government will do to solve problems like roads and transport.

Instead, Barry O'Farrell has managed to keep the spotlight on the death throes of the government, with the electricity sell-off inquiry providing the stage for the final act.

the sickest puppy in paradise .....

the sickest puppy in paradise .....

Former British prime minister Tony Blair has acknowledged that he ignored the warning of his then-Attorney General that attacking Iraq was illegal without United Nations approval.

Mr Blair, who was summoned on Friday for a second time by the official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war, said he believed the warning was provisional.

During a four hour appearance, he said he thought the Attorney General would change his mind on whether a second UN resolution was necessary when he knew the full details of negotiations that had been taking place.

once again, with feeling .....

 

once again, with feeling .....

He just cannot help himself. With half of eastern Australia a quagmire of endless heartbreak, with bodies still to be found, mourned and buried, there is Tony Abbott playing cheap politics yet again.

The government should abandon the $36 billion national broadband network and spend the money on reconstruction, he said on Tuesday. The network was "a luxury that Australia cannot now afford. The one thing you don't do is redo your bathroom when your roof has just been blown off.''

just let us be .....

just let us be .....

The Department of Homeland Security has released a trio of chilling PSA video clips in which ordinary everyday activities are characterized as signs of potential terrorism, with the public being indoctrinated to assume the role of domestic spies reporting on their friends and neighbors as America sinks deeper into a decaying police state.

all's well in blair's hell

blair's hell

He said Iran "is doing everything it can to impede progress in the Middle East peace process, and to facilitate a situation in which that region cannot embark on a process of modernisation it so urgently needs".

He added: "And this is not because we have done something. At some point - and I say this to you with all the passion I possibly can - the West has got to get out of what I think is this wretched policy, or posture, of apology for believing that we are causing what the Iranians are doing, or what these extremists are doing. The fact is we are not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12246410

a case of the moody's .....

a case of the moody's .....

from Crikey .....

The discredited agencies that drive Labor policy

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

beware corporations bearing gifts .....

beware corporations bearing gifts .....

"A fabulous Easter gift," commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil.

Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift.

Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all!!

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