Navigation
Search
Democracy Links
Member's Off-site Blogs
Recent Comments
Mr Rudd was among the first to ring Mr Katter on election night to congratulate him. Days later, Mr Rudd slipped back into Canberra to help out.
Mr Katter was ''very surprised'' by Mr Rudd's determination this week that the independents back Labor. Especially given that if Ms Gillard is successful, it would end any chance of Mr Rudd regaining the leadership.
''He was very aggressive, and very passionate, even though it might be the signing of his political death warrant.''
Wild chimpanzees are learning how to outwit human hunters.
Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife.
But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found.
More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed.
The discovery was serendipitously made by primatologists Mr Gaku Ohashi and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa who were following chimps living in Bossou, Guinea to study the apes' social behaviour.
-------
See toon at top and read ALL comments below it...
Before we begin, a challenge: I defy anyone to find a single phrase in Obama's speech on Iraq last night that couldn't have issued forth from the foetid maw of George W. Bush (with the possible exception of his mentions of George W. Bush).
Barack Obama's Iraq speech last night is an impressive entry in the annals of war propaganda. In it, he glosses over a criminal war as 'a remarkable chapter' in US history, and creates the false impression that the occupation of Iraq is over. He places the responsibility rebuilding a society out of the rubble we created on the shoulders of the Iraqi people (we are, of course, blameless), and tells us that it's time to 'turn the page' on a crime that is continuing, and for which not a single perpetrator has yet even been indicted. It is a wonder that he wasn't struck by lightning before finishing.
In his speech last night, Obama announced that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country." This, many people will - not unreasonably - conclude, means that the war against Iraq, the long national nightmare we have visited on millions of people, is over.
It's not.
In reality, Obama is continuing a rhetorical shell game that he started in the campaign, betting that most people will hear that he intended to end "combat operations" and assume that that meant ending the occupation (a word that Obama used not a single time in his speech) of Iraq. After all, isn't the entire occupation one big "combat operation"? Isn't every US soldier and mercenary there - engaged, as they are, in controlling Iraq by the gun and the electrode - a "combat soldier"?
"Nothing could be further from the truth", Seumas Milne writes in the Guardian newspaper:
The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all - it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".
But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do.
Granted, 50,000 is a major reduction on the numbers in Iraq a year ago. But what Obama once called "the dumb war" goes remorselessly on. In fact, violence has been increasing as the Iraqi political factions remain deadlocked for the fifth month in a row in the Green Zone. More civilians are being killed in Iraq than Afghanistan: 535 last month alone, according to the Iraqi government - the worst figure for two years.
Simply put, Obama isn't using the words "the occupation of Iraq is over" because the occupation of Iraq is not over.
Where did that opinion come from? The Murdoch media?
I quote from Stephen Mayne in Your Democracy…
The other destabilising element is the coming High Court challenge to two new Coalition MPs who foolishly failed to resign their positions on local councils before being elected.
Former Campbelltown mayor Russell Matheson, the new Liberal member for Macarthur, is even promising to stay on Liverpool council despite serving in the Federal Parliament.
And George Christensen, the new CLP member for Dawson, only formally quit the Mackay Regional Council last week after it was clear he'd scored a political promotion.
Both these chaps could fall foul of section 44 (iv) of the Constitution which prohibits anyone enjoying an office of profit under the crown from nominating for Federal Parliament.
Independent Phil Cleary and Liberal Jacqui Kelly both faced by-elections after coming a cropper in court challenges relying on this constitutional provision, but the High Court has never been asked whether this includes councillor stipends. (Fight Labor fight).
The Coalition holds Dawson by just 2.08% and Macarthur by 3.17% so Labor sympathizers would definitely have a crack at the High Court given success would trigger two by-elections in winnable marginal seats that would bring down a minority Abbott Government.
COMMENT. During an election that is being played by the Murdoch media as a photo finish or an oil painting, why are such blatant abuses above, whether intended or accidental, allowed to pass muster?
In the Murdoch Media, they even seem to be ignored?
This is still a class war as far as I am concerned and the Australian people need to ignore the obvious Murdoch biased propaganda even as the Murdochracy would ignore the propaganda of the Nazi regime they loathed so much.
The only fear I have is that while the Abbott/Murdoch tactics are even as low as to attack the integrity of our Governor-General and even the P.M’s ear lobes (for God’s sake) for Julia and her advisers in the first weeks of this campaign didn’t realise just how desperate were the Corporation’s government to stop the flow of Australian independence by any means possible.
Julia, your opponents are Corporation representatives and the first principle of a corporation is profit by any means. They will never be honest while they can sell their bullshit.
A good salesperson is classified as one who can sell an object for more than it is worth.
NE OUBLIE.
The Amazon river has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years in north-eastern Peru, causing severe economic disruption in a region where it is the main transport route.
At least six large boats have been stranded near the port city of Iquitos.
The low water level is the result of a prolonged spell of dry weather, Peru's national meteorological office said.
The river is expected to fall further before the rainy season begins next month.
Cut off
Iquitos and other towns in Peru's rainforest region have no road links to the rest of the country, and depend on the Amazon and its tributaries for transport.
Food and other supplies are now being brought in by smaller boats that can navigate the shallow channels, weaving between exposed mud banks.
But these journeys take up to twice as long, and the cost is much higher.
River level in Iquitos had fallen to 106m (347.8ft) above sea level, 50cm (19.7in) lower than a previous record set in 2005, officials said.
One of the biggest and most important seed banks in the world is at risk of being replaced by a private housing development.
The facility near the Russian city of St Petersburg houses thousands of varieties of plants, not found anywhere else in the world.
Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports from Pavlovsk in the St Petersburg region.
MORE than 20 years after it first appeared, a classic Mambo design has proved too controversial to sell on a department store T-shirt.
Big W has removed 200 shirts depicting the crucifixion of a mouse from 30 of its stores following a complaint. The design was created by the Australian artist Richard Allen in 1986.
The move comes just weeks after the discount department store added Mambo designs to its clothing range, which was seen as an attempt by the label to widen its sales base.
The "100 per cent Mambo" T-shirt bears the tagline: "Forgive them, father, they know not what to wear."
It appeared this year in a book on cult streetwear, where Mambo was named one of the most influential brands of the past two decades alongside Nike and adidas. But in recent years the label has struggled through tough times. It was sold two years ago to Equity and Capital Finance Australia for $10 million – half what Gazal Corporation paid for it in 2000.
A spokeswoman for Big W, Clare Buchanan, said the T-shirt's inclusion in the Big W collection was reviewed after a complaint from a customer at its Fairfield store.
Feral cats wiping out endangered bush species
A new report from the Nature Conservancy has found that mammal species in northern Australia are in rapid decline and many are at risk of becoming extinct within the next decade.
At least a dozen species are listed as critical or endangered and another dozen are thought to be vulnerable.
Researchers believe the problem is getting worse and feral cats and fire management are largely to blame for the decline.
The head of biodiversity for the Northern Territory Environment Department, Professor John Woinarski, says the mostly small and furry creatures are under immense pressure and in many cases are living on borrowed time.
"When I came here 25 years or so ago it was a paradise for native mammals and that's just not the case anymore," he said.
"It's perplexing. Much of the landscape still looks extraordinarily intact and natural and extensive and beautiful, but some of the species are clearly falling out of that landscape.
"It's been a difficult task for us to figure out what's causing that decline, given the apparent naturalness of landscape.
"We think that the main contributing factors are predation by feral cats and changed fire regimes."
Professor Woinarski says it is one of the region's smaller inhabitants that may be the next victim.
"There's a beautiful rodent called a brush-tailed rabbit rat which is a guinea pig-sized animal but with a beautiful long feathery tail," he said.
"We're witnessing its really rapid decline over the last two decades. It's disappeared from a lot of places where formally it was very common and it's the one I'd pick as the most likely for extinction in the next 10 or so years.
"But there's a range of others which are similarly declining in more or less the same sort of synchrony I guess."
Recent Comments