He will soon play a major role in deciding the fate of one such bill, to help struggling homeowners, that the House passed, 266 to 154, on Thursday. 

Burma wants supplies but not foreign aid workers, its foreign ministry says, hours after the UN chief urged military leaders to prioritise relief work. 

Burma is 'making strenuous efforts' to get aid to affected areas by itself and was not ready for foreign teams, a statement in a state daily says. 

With a bill like a duck, a tail and fur like a beaver and snake-like venom hidden in heel spurs, the platypus could be the result of some strange genetic experiment.

It is: evolution. 

from Crikey …..

Edward Cranswick

25APR2008
ANZAC Day

from Crikey ….. 

A toast to John Howard: what Downer should've said 

Two Men's Lives Reflect Divergent Fortunes of Jewish, Palestinian Peoples

By Griff Witte 

Sixty years ago, Dror Gurel and Nabil Zaharan were born into a land at war. 

Consigned to a dismal prison cell, facing the prospect of dying behind bars surrounded by those who insisted on his guilt, James Woodard displayed leonine strength of character and inexhaustible tenacity. 

Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday and lost narrowly to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, an outcome that injected a boost of momentum to Mr. Obama’s candidacy as the Democratic nominating contest entered its final month. 

Standard Operating Procedure has finally opened at cinemas in America.

It is not expected to equal the box office of an action flick. But as it reaches screens across America and around the world, it will be held up as peerless testimony to all that has gone wrong since President Bush took office.

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers.

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked. 

It is crunch time for the Bush administration as it continues to hold out hope for a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. 

But even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice let out a sign of her frustration at the lack of progress on the ground, particularly on the part of the Israelis. 

Iemma to push ahead with privatisation plan ….. 

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma is planning to defy the will of his own party and push ahead with electricity privatisation. 

Yesterday the state conference of the New South Wales Labor Party voted 702 to 107 against privatisation of electricity assets. 

The world's most dangerous terrorist, who has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, has launched yet another campaign of murder and destruction.

Unions and the State Government are at war after a last-ditch attempt to settle the bitter power privatisation dispute ended disastrously. 

Hours of negotiations at yesterday's ALP state conference fell apart when the Government accused the unions of "not only asking us to accept defeat but commit hara-kiri".