Gollob points to a machine that easily fits in a bag the size of a woman's purse. It's a universal translator. It is being tested in Iraq by DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the legendary research and development works in Arlington where Gollob is a contractor.

The machine interprets the spoken word. You talk in English. It repeats whatever you said in spoken Iraqi Arabic. It then awaits a spoken response from the Iraqi, and talks back to you in English.

Anthony Steen said public "jealousy" was fuelling the furore and claimed that taxpayers have no right to see the details of individual MPs' claims.

Mr Steen made his comments in a BBC interview shortly after announcing that he would be standing down at the next election. His decision came after it emerged that he claimed £87,729 over four years to maintain his Devon country house. The payments included money to inspect some of the 500 trees surrounding the property and to guard his shrubs from rabbits.

President Obama today signed into law a bill that prevents credit card companies from raising interest rates arbitrarily and limits the fees they can charge, meeting his own deadline of enacting the bill before Memorial Day.

"Just as we demand credit card users act responsibly, we demand that credit card companies act responsibly too," he said before signing the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.

Unrepentant and newly unbridled, former vice president Richard B. Cheney has embraced two missions in his political retirement: to forcefully defend the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies and to publicly condemn those who would unravel them.

He did both yesterday, using the drama of a televised feud with President Obama to deliver the blistering accusation that more Americans are likely to die because the president has turned away from George W. Bush's post-Sept. 11, 2001, national security agenda. Cheney seemed eager to fan the flames of the debates raging through Washington.

It is truly an amazing hat.

That's the kind of hat that if anyone other than a priest were seen to be wearing it, small children would point and whoop with laughter, adults would purse their lips in concern and cross the street to avoid it, and concerned policemen would pull over to politely ask, "Do you need some assistance, sir? Are you on any medication?"

Tasmanian devils with large facial tumours were photographed in north-east Tasmania during 1996. A decade later, we know these characteristics are consistent with Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) - a fatal condition in Tasmanian devils, characterised by cancers around the mouth and head.

As at December 2008, the Tasmanian devil disease had been confirmed at 64 different locations across more than 60% of Tasmania's mainland.

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No doubt you're going to feel terrible about this. Top executives of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street powerhouse, are in a pout about how they're being treated by you and me ie: the public.

President Barack Obama has proposed tough new rules for vehicle emissions, which could see a 30 per cent reduction in individual passenger car emissions by 2016.

Obama and friends unveil CAFE from the White House Rose Garden.

The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards also decree that car manufacturers must maintain a fleet fuel consumption average of 43mpg by 2016.

This fuel consumption average includes both commercial vehicles and passenger cars, but 51mpg has been set as the standard for cars and 31mpg for light commercial vehicles. Current standards are 33mpg and 29mpg, respectively.

The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into George Bush.

Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises.

Obama said he would close the torture prison, Guantanamo, and abolish the kangaroo courts known as military tribunals. But now he says he is going to reform the tribunals and continue the process, but without confessions obtained with torture. Getting behind Obama's validation of the Bush/Cheney policy, House Democrats pulled the budget funding that was to be used for closing Guantanamo.

Miranda Devine

May 21, 2009 ...

You always know when zealotry creeps into a story there is another agenda at work - and that is that the Johns case is a beachhead in the war against masculinity, waged by those who think the only difference between men and women is cultural.

from Crikey .....

 PM's media deceptions treat voters like children

 Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

What a Jekyll and Hyde mob this Government is. While John Faulkner is commendably leading the charge toward greater transparency and accountability, the Prime Minister is engaged in a deeply cynical and unashamed process of manipulation.

Amid much speculation over US President Barack Obama's upcoming address to the Muslim world, reports published on Wednesday outlined the details of his Middle East peace plan, which are said to include a demilitarized Palestinian state.

The US president's initiative, which was formulated in consultation with Jordan's King Abdullah II during the two leaders' recent meetings at the White House, reportedly does not significantly stray from the pan-Arab peace initiative proposed in 2002. Rather, it bolsters certain details within the Saudi-proposed plan.

In the Empire State, opponents of gay marriage are disorganized and poorly funded. The New York Times details several reasons why America's self-appointed moral scolds aren't mounting much of a fight on this one, among which is this delicious bit:

"The state's Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage."

Hey, there are only so many hours in the day.

When doctors started reporting that some of the victims of the US bombing of several villages in Farah Province last week - an attack that left between 117 and 147 civilians dead, most of them women and children - were turning up with deep, sharp burns on their body that "looked like" they'd been caused by white phosphorus, the US military was quick to deny responsibility.

From its very infancy, our government has made a vital part of its existence the theft of property that belongs to others and the demonization of those who would resist, or those who see the state for what it really is.

From the American Indian to the veterans who have fought the state's illegal wars, resistance to, or speaking out against the criminality of the state will bring down the full force of the state's wrath, up to and including elimination.