... I sometimes have this image in my mind of this princess marrying a toad because no matter how many times she kisses him, he remains a toad... And there’s also this nice twist at the end in the movie Shrek... Ah... fairy tales versus feminism... But this is not about that.

“The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life ... A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors... Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same."

George Orwell, 1984

BORROWED?

Well! I feel like Dave Hughes on the ABC Glass-House: "Er... I'm Annnggggrrry-y-y... Well... not really-y-y..." There're people out there who believe this web site is for....

I don't understand why this article in the SMH was not on the front page.

We now have the highest institutional authority on interest rates - The Reserve Bank - revealing that Howard's central election campaign was a fabrication.

The only reason the Reserve Bank didn't speak up and say the Liberals were lying about interest rates, according to the article, is because they didn't want to become a highly politicised focus of the campaign themselves.

We can empathise with the Reserve's dilemna at the time.

“ALARUM, ALARUM: oil prices hit record levels

"Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 in order to control the gigantic Kuwaiti oil pools; the United Nations went to war in 1991 to expel the Iraqi invaders. How sad it is that we humans find it necessary to kill each other because of tectonic events that happened millions of years ago."

Regulars will have noticed small changes to the site over its opening weeks, all thanks to volunteers David and Nigel.

But David has just implemented a whole new look, still with cartoonist Gus Leonisky's banner design, but with some much slicker formatting.

Thanks heaps for your work David.

Please feed back All.

Conning Condoleezza Rice fronted the release of the US Department of State’s annual report on the rest of the world’s efforts on the human rights front last week…

"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."

Baron De Montesquieu