G-8 countries backed down yesterday from their strong global warming stance, instead embracing President Bush's proposal to move toward unspecified “substantial cuts” in carbon emissions.

The "agreement says the G-8 countries will 'seriously' consider cutting emissions in half by 2050, but it sets no mandatory goals for all."

from the Sydney morning herald

loopholes prevent action on petrol

‘The national competition watchdog will remain toothless in its attempts to tackle alleged price gouging by oil companies because of loopholes in legislation and the failure of the Federal Government to outlaw cartels, a competition and fair trading expert says.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, "only needed to ask" for more power to pursue oil firms.

While Anglo-Australians can be proud of a long-time forgotten truth of “Fair Go” Australia for the privileged, today’s Australia is an unequal & unfair society. The myth of “Fair Go” Australia is just a shield, protecting Australia against criticism of Australia’s unfair treatments of Indigenous Australians & Australians from other minority groups.

‘In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld famously called the detainees at Guantánamo "the worst of the worst." General Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were "very dangerous people who would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." These claims were designed to justify locking up hundreds of men and boys for years in small cages like animals.

from Crikey …..

Doing Rudd slowly while the economy boils over

Christian Kerr writes:

If you’ve ever watched Jamie Oliver, you’ll know how all the different people in a commercial kitchen have to work in unison. And so it is running a nation. The economic Escoffiers and political patisseriers just can’t do their own thing.

‘Neo-cons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear weapons.

from the ABC …..

Minister says Pell as bad as that 'boofhead Hilaly'

Alexandra Smith and Linda Morris

June 7, 2007

The Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, could be compared to "that serial boofhead Sheik al Hilaly", the NSW cabinet minister Nathan Rees has said in an explosive speech in Parliament.

Liberal leadership speculation absurd: Downer

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has described the latest bout of Liberal leadership speculation as "absurd".

With the Coalition trailing Labor in the polls, there has been renewed speculation that it is time for John Howard to hand over the leadership heading into the Federal election campaign.

Little rattus is lying when he says that his new AWA fairness test is 'no different' from the old no disadvantage test.

The deceit of the prime rodent is evidenced by his assertion that it is 'silly' for workers to go to the High Court to appeal against the loss of penalty rates or other conditions under an AWA individual contract, whilst he refuses to give workers any alternative means of appealing a 'fairness test' ruling.

The fairness test is inferior in four key ways:

from the SMH …..

Foreign debt - Australia's black hole

Jacob Saulwick

June 6, 2007

AUSTRALIA'S current account deficit improved slightly in the three months to March following a blowout at the end of last year, but the picture is marred by ballooning foreign debt.

from the Centre for American Progress …..

An Inconvenient Summit

Media Release:
Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has been selected by the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command to compete for future task orders under the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection (ATFP) Ashore program contract vehicle. KBR will be part of a Lockheed Martin-led team. Three other companies were also selected to compete for tasks throughout the contract period. KBR will be providing the full range of design-build services for facilities infrastructure to the Lockheed Martin team.

The ATFP is a firm fixed price, indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract that covers one base year and four option years. The four companies selected will compete for tasks which, all totaled, have a contract ceiling of up to $500 million over the five-year time period.

Webdiary's last vestige of heart and soul, Craig Rowley has resigned as director and editor. His departure is only mentioned as a sentence buried in the site. Of the names mentioned as the Webdiary Management Team there is only one who is currently active- General Manager David Roffey.

I was honoured and proud to be invited by Margo Kingston to write there, and to start this blog which she and her brother Hamish helped me find my feet on. I'm glad that John is keeping things alive here.

The idea, championed by Margo and Hamish (founders of Your Democracy) of creating a platform for people to write and exchange their ideas was and is a good one