from the ABC

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has apologised to his colleagues for not consulting them before announcing a Coalition plan for a paid parental leave scheme.

Facing Coalition MPs today in the wake of the announcement, Mr Abbott said sometimes it was necessary to make a "leader's call" over some issues, and "sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission".

A joint partyroom meeting today saw almost 20 MPs speak about the plan, which would see Australia's biggest businesses taxed by an extra 1.7 per cent.

from the ABC

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he will introduce a six-month paid parental leave scheme if the Coalition wins the next election.

Mr Abbott says the Coalition would offer six months pay for parents at their current salary, up to a ceiling of $150,000, rather than the Government's scheme of 18 weeks paid at the minimum wage.

The plan would be funded by a new levy on larger businesses.

Mr Abbott says the scheme would give families a better deal than the Government is currently offering.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's explanation to the Chilcot Inquiry on why he, when he was Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer & wrote the cheques for it, backed the war on Iraq.

He said: "It was the right decision for the right reasons. Aggressor states that refuse to obey the laws of the international community have to be confronted". Iraq was a "serial violator of the rules of the international community."

At the coal-face of educating Gustaphian with porkies...

in Oklahoma

An awareness of class makes clear who is fucking whom. That's why American capitalism's official line is that we area "classless society." Denying the existence of class, deeming all Americans (excepting a few too-obvious-to-be denied cases, such as inner city blacks and the poorest of immigrants), "middle class" was one of American capitalism's great strokes of genius. It blurred the line between workers and capitalism's middle class commissariat - the petty business, mid-management, teaching and owning class managing the rest of us for the elites.

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Sunrise or Lateline, A Current Affair:

Christopher Pyne is saying his prayers.

God bless Tony and God bless me,

And God, please help me get on TV.

I don't care when and I don't mind where.

- with apologies to A. A. Milne.

Christopher Maurice Pyne, the federal Liberal MP for the Adelaide seat of Sturt, opposition spokesman for education, is what we in the trade call a media tart. That is, he would crawl through razor wire and gunfire to get his name in a newspaper or his silly head in front of a microphone and a camera.

Note: for some strange reason, the Chris Floyd site crashes Firefox...

Four men who have been imprisoned for over a year - some for almost two years - are going to US federal court to challenge their detention at the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

The men, whom their lawyers say have never engaged in hostilities against the US and are not members of groups that have engaged in hostilities against the US, have never been told why they are being detained, never been permitted to speak with a lawyer or given a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a court or impartial administrative board.

from Crikey .....

Lost Near Fossil Creek: locals bemused as Abbott quadbikes

Bob Gosford writes:

rats

Why pay attention to the biodiversity of the planet?...

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2010 is the UN year of the biodiversity. But, apart from a few dedicated scientists and greenies who understand and try to value the problem of biodiversity's decline, the campaign for protection of ecosystems appears absent, uninspiring, dull and at times childish, especially to business men in suits driving economic road-graders for profits and for pocket money bonuses.

Dubai police say they are seeking the arrest of Israel's prime minister and the head of its spy agency over the murder of a top Hamas militant in a hotel room of the Gulf city-state.

Police chief Dahi Khalfan said on Tuesday he had issued the demand for the arrest warrants as he was now certain they ordered the Cold War-style hit on Mahmud al-Mabhuh.

"I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," Meir Dagan, said Khalfan.

"I am now completely sure that it was Mossad."

There were grave fears for Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott after he went missing in a remote part of Central Australia yesterday.

As part of Mr Abbott's four-day tour of the Northern Territory, he has already spent time in Alice Springs and met with locals at some of the town camps.

Yesterday he was visiting Kings Creek Station, west of Alice Springs, when he set off on a quad bike tour.

He was with a group of traditional owners, the owner of the Kings Creek Station and the Northern Territory Opposition Leader.

From the SMH

Mr Pyne said a Coalition government would conduct a thorough review of the curriculum.

''If we find the review confirms our very serious doubts then we'll scrap the national curriculum and we'll start again because it would be better for students to have the curriculum that they have now under the states than for them to have an unbalanced curriculum that will do them more harm than good,'' he said.