It is truly an amazing hat.

That's the kind of hat that if anyone other than a priest were seen to be wearing it, small children would point and whoop with laughter, adults would purse their lips in concern and cross the street to avoid it, and concerned policemen would pull over to politely ask, "Do you need some assistance, sir? Are you on any medication?"

Tasmanian devils with large facial tumours were photographed in north-east Tasmania during 1996. A decade later, we know these characteristics are consistent with Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) - a fatal condition in Tasmanian devils, characterised by cancers around the mouth and head.

As at December 2008, the Tasmanian devil disease had been confirmed at 64 different locations across more than 60% of Tasmania's mainland.

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No doubt you're going to feel terrible about this. Top executives of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street powerhouse, are in a pout about how they're being treated by you and me ie: the public.

President Barack Obama has proposed tough new rules for vehicle emissions, which could see a 30 per cent reduction in individual passenger car emissions by 2016.

Obama and friends unveil CAFE from the White House Rose Garden.

The new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards also decree that car manufacturers must maintain a fleet fuel consumption average of 43mpg by 2016.

This fuel consumption average includes both commercial vehicles and passenger cars, but 51mpg has been set as the standard for cars and 31mpg for light commercial vehicles. Current standards are 33mpg and 29mpg, respectively.

The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into George Bush.

Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises.

Obama said he would close the torture prison, Guantanamo, and abolish the kangaroo courts known as military tribunals. But now he says he is going to reform the tribunals and continue the process, but without confessions obtained with torture. Getting behind Obama's validation of the Bush/Cheney policy, House Democrats pulled the budget funding that was to be used for closing Guantanamo.

Miranda Devine

May 21, 2009 ...

You always know when zealotry creeps into a story there is another agenda at work - and that is that the Johns case is a beachhead in the war against masculinity, waged by those who think the only difference between men and women is cultural.

from Crikey .....

 PM's media deceptions treat voters like children

 Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

What a Jekyll and Hyde mob this Government is. While John Faulkner is commendably leading the charge toward greater transparency and accountability, the Prime Minister is engaged in a deeply cynical and unashamed process of manipulation.

Amid much speculation over US President Barack Obama's upcoming address to the Muslim world, reports published on Wednesday outlined the details of his Middle East peace plan, which are said to include a demilitarized Palestinian state.

The US president's initiative, which was formulated in consultation with Jordan's King Abdullah II during the two leaders' recent meetings at the White House, reportedly does not significantly stray from the pan-Arab peace initiative proposed in 2002. Rather, it bolsters certain details within the Saudi-proposed plan.

In the Empire State, opponents of gay marriage are disorganized and poorly funded. The New York Times details several reasons why America's self-appointed moral scolds aren't mounting much of a fight on this one, among which is this delicious bit:

"The state's Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage."

Hey, there are only so many hours in the day.

When doctors started reporting that some of the victims of the US bombing of several villages in Farah Province last week - an attack that left between 117 and 147 civilians dead, most of them women and children - were turning up with deep, sharp burns on their body that "looked like" they'd been caused by white phosphorus, the US military was quick to deny responsibility.

From its very infancy, our government has made a vital part of its existence the theft of property that belongs to others and the demonization of those who would resist, or those who see the state for what it really is.

From the American Indian to the veterans who have fought the state's illegal wars, resistance to, or speaking out against the criminality of the state will bring down the full force of the state's wrath, up to and including elimination.

from Crikey .....

Rumsfeld and Cheney's torture approval was about self-justification

Editor of Overland Jeff Sparrow writes:

"He's a ruthless little bastard. You can be sure of that."

So said Richard Nixon, a man who knew something about ruthlessness and bastardry, about Donald Rumsfeld back in 1971.

On Friday, April 24, Australia Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, addressed the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, and referring to the recent speech given by Iranian President Ahmadinejad at the Durban conference on racism, said:

The inflammatory remarks of President Ahmadinejad of Iran at the conference are unacceptable and underlined the Australian Government's decision not to attend the conference. The Australian Government condemns the continued campaign of anti-Semitism on behalf of the government of Iran.

Homo sapiens may have been responsible for butchering Neanderthals in the Stone Age. Evidence for this theory has been found on a jawbone in France. The bone was covered in cut marks similar to those found when humans stripped the flesh from animals.

To paraphrase Al Pacino in "Godfather III," just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can't.

Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration's high ambitions.