The Attorney General,                                    

The Hon Robert McClelland MP,                               

Parliament House,

Peter Costello is maintaining the rage against John Howard and his Liberal Party colleagues by blaming the election loss on their reluctance to make him the leader. 

In a sign his bitterness has not abated in the three weeks since the election, Mr Costello used yesterday's declaration of the polls in his Melbourne seat of Higgins to say a lack of "renewal" had cost the Coalition the election. 

I did like it [soldiering] in the old days, back when the prerequisite of a British campaign was that the enemy should under no circumstances carry guns.

Even spears made us think twice....  

The kind of people we liked to fight were two feet tall and armed with dried grass.... 

Finally, Howard admits McKew has it

“The 33-year parliamentary career of John Howard ended today when he finally conceded defeat in Bennelong and congratulated the woman who beat him, Labor's Maxine McKew .... 

The involvement of agency lawyers in the decision making would widen the scope of the inquiries into the matter that have now begun in Congress and within the Justice Department.  

BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime" in history. 

Conrad Black, the disgraced media mogul, was yesterday sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail by a judge in the United States for his role in a £3 million fraud.  

Lord Black of Crossharbour swindled shareholders out of more than $6 million (£2.96 million) in a fraud conspiracy with three colleagues.  

As Glenn Greenwald explains, the Democrats have also been engaging in quite the charade with their supposed outrage about the Bush administration's torture policy, given that they have retained in the leadership roles tasked with investigating Bush's intelligence abuses the very people who signed off on those abuses. 

Gulf Arab countries challenged Defense Secretary Robert Gates on American policies toward Iran and Israel Saturday, after he urged them to force Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.  

Several delegates at the regional security conference in Bahrain said U.S. was hypocritical for supporting Israeli nuclear weapons, and questioned Washington's refusal to meet with Iran to discuss the Islamic state's nuclear activities.  

Garrett, Kerry discuss US stance on climate change ….. 

Environment Minister Peter Garrett has met US Democrats Senator John Kerry in Bali to discuss the United States' position on climate change. 

In 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) videotaped its officials administering harsh interrogation tactics on two al Qaeda operatives, but three years later, destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the incidents.  

the opposition frontbench at a glance ….. 

Julie Bishop: employment, business and workplace relations 

Malcolm Turnbull: shadow treasurer 

Andrew Robb: foreign affairs 

On Tuesday, President Bush said he was never forewarned by the intelligence community that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003: 

Gillard defends Garrett sidelining 

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has defended Labor's decision to bar Environment Minister Peter Garrett from answering parliamentary questions about climate change.