The Centre for American Progress reports …..

“Americans are worried about debt and believe it is just going to get worse. "The public is more worried about falling into debt, particularly from medical bills, than about being the victim of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster." According to a new poll sponsored by the Center for American Progress, 86 percent "insist the number of Americans having trouble with household debt has gone up in the last five years." Unfortunately, their worries are well-grounded in reality. The average American savings rate in 2005 was negative 0.5 percent, "the lowest since the Great Depression."  As everyday expenses continue to rise, the problem of debt will continue to burden working Americans.

‘In Iraq, officials said Wednesday that U.S. and coalition forces as well as an increase in sectarian violence were behind the surge in civilian casualties cited in a U.N. report.

The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq said nearly 6,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in May and June in a wave of assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation.

‘When we last left off, our gallant crusaders, Bush Wayne and his trusted confidant, Dick Grayson-Cheney - oil executives by day, freedom fighters by night - had earned yet another significant victory in their divinely inspired war on terror. 

Another “corner was turned” as our heroes sent on a one-way trip to paradise that diabolic villain, the elusive, brilliant mastermind of the evil Iraqi insurgency, the once-invisible man known only to us mortals as al-Zarqawi: the (unelected) leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. 

 
‘US Ambassador John Bolton said there was no moral equivalence between the civilian casualties from the Israeli raids in Lebanon and those killed in Israel from "malicious terrorist acts".

Asked to comment on the deaths in an Israeli air strike of eight Canadian citizens in southern Lebanon Sunday, he said: "it is a matter of great concern to us ...that these civilian deaths are occurring. It's a tragedy."

Vanstone faces accusations of animal cruelty over her share in piggery July 13, 2006

A Piggery part-owned by the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, is breaching industry guidelines by keeping pigs in cramped conditions, animal welfare activists allege.

Animal Liberation said it lodged a complaint yesterday with South Australian police, complaining of conditions at the Wasleys piggery,  near Adelaide.

Senator Vanstone said she owned shares in the piggery but had nothing to do with the running of the operation, thought to be one of the largest in the state.

‘The fight over the Hamdan ruling heats up - as fears about its reach escalate.

David Bowker vividly remembers the first time he heard the phrase. A lawyer in the State Department, Bowker was part of a Bush administration "working group" assembled in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Its task: figuring out what rights captured foreign fighters and terror suspects were entitled to while in U.S. custody. White House hard-liners, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his uncompromising lawyer, David Addington, made it clear that there was only one acceptable answer. One day, Bowker recalls, a colleague explained the goal: to "find the legal equivalent of outer space" - a "lawless" universe. As Bowker understood it, the idea was to create a system where detainees would have no legal rights and US courts would have no power to intervene.

 Adelaide is now a port of the U.S.A. The Pentagon has announced that it will make the three warships being built in Adelaide compatible with the U.S. Navy.

In a mandatory notice to Congress, the Pentagon's Defence Security Cooperation Agency said Australia was seeking to buy up to three MK 41 Vertical Launch System "ship sets" and modify up to three MK 7 Aegis weapons systems.

Lockheed Martin, who were last year awarded the system integration contracts for the three Air Warfare Destroyers being constructed in South Australia, will sell Australia up to a billion dollars worth of technology.

The following piece was written by a friend of mine from America, who recently was proud to become an Australian Citizen.

It is sadly ironic that a “New” Australian has the courage to speak out in the face of our government’s shameful deeds, whilst so many of us who had the good fortune to be born & raised in this great land remain steadfastly silent.

‘I had the privilege recently to become a citizen of this country, one of the finest in the world in so many respects. I am proud to call myself Australian, but I have some questions of Mr. Howard and Mr. Costello and Mr. Downer and the rest of the "Leaders" of this land.

‘The U.S. government has been, and continues to be, a major supporter of state-supported terrorism, favouring retaliatory or pre-emptive aggression over mediation in the world court, and avoiding accountability by excluding itself from the globally accepted definition of terrorism.

The hypocrisy of the U.S. government is powerfully scrutinized in Distorted Morality, a scathing thesis presented by renowned scholar Noam Chomsky.’

our little prime hypocrite was at it again yesterday ….

Answering a question about the horrendous terrorist attack in Mumbai, the deputy opportunist once again took full advantage of a supine media to spruik his favourite lines on the dread of terrorism, giving his fear meme a good kick along in the process.

PRIME MINISTER:

Ladies and gentlemen, can I just start by repeating the sense of horror that I felt when I learned the news of the terrorist attack in India. I send my sympathy, and that of the Australian people, to our friends in India. It's a reminder that no country anywhere in the world is immune from the possibility of a terrorist attack. It doesn't matter what the foreign policy of the country is, it doesn't matter whether it's a democracy, or what form of democracy it might be, all countries are subject to terrorist attacks.

It’s often been said that it’s inappropriate to speak ill of the dead.

But during Ken Lay’s funeral yesterday, the Reverend Dr. Bill Lawson gave new meaning to that tradition.

The crazy Reverend compared Ken Lay with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr & Jesus Christ, & said “his name would eventually be cleared."

"History has a way of vindicating people who have been wronged." said Lawson.

‘The cash-for-peerages scandal paralysing Britain's Labour Party moved perilously close to Tony Blair's door when the London Metropolitan Police yesterday arrested Lord Levy, the Prime Minister's confidant, party fundraiser and Middle East envoy.

The news 10 Downing Street has been privately dreading for months came after the police spent all day interviewing Lord Levy at a north London police station before releasing him on bail without charge.

Happy happy day.... I've been skipping around the kitchen since I
heard this on the radio.  Halliburton's army supply deal has been
cancelled, and the global supply job will be retendered later this year.

There's a catch however.  This means that instead of one global corporation
following yank troops around the world, now there will be four or five.

[Reuters extract}

Army officials said they will not renew the contract
awarded in 2001 to Halliburton subsidiary KBR to provide water,
dining and laundry services and transport fuel and other items,
including mail, to U.S. troops.

Prisoners at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay
have been subjected to “systematic physical, psychological, sexual, medical
& religious abuse”, according to a report released this week by the US
Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

The report - Report
On Torture & Cruel, Inhuman & Degrading Treatment Of Prisoners At
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - is the most comprehensive primary-source account
of abuse at the facility. The report cites declassified statements from
detainees still at Guantanamo & from their lawyers. According to the
report, Guantanamo detainees have been: