The Editor,

Sydney Morning Herald. December 30, 2006.

Man of steel, John Howard, reckons he’d be happy to live next door to a nuclear reactor (‘PM bets house on uranium’, Herald, December 30).

‘Tony Blair's Christmas holiday sparked controversy yesterday after it emerged that the Prime Minister was staying in the Florida mansion of rock star Robin Gibb, who just weeks ago lobbied the government to beef up musicians' rights.

It emerged that Mr Blair would be staying at the £5.8 million home of Gibb, a singer with the band the Bee Gee's and a leading voice of the British Academy of Composers and Song Writers.

Nearly four years after US led forces invaded Iraq & jughead junior declared victory, the US has experienced its worst month of casualties all year …..

With three days left in December, 109 service members have died, according to figures provided by the military & news releases of combat deaths.

The total number of US military deaths in the Iraq war stands at 2,983: a tragic statistic that, nevertheless, pales to insignificance when compared to the carnage wrought against more than 650,000 innocent Iraqis.

‘In today’s America there appear to be several articles of faith on which people will brook no debate: One is that the U.S. military, the most destructive organizational force in human history, is capable of crushing any and all resistance. This faith is, of course, false. U.S. forces in the Middle East are failing not due to a shortage of destructive might, but because of the limits imposed by the moral level of action.

‘An article in a leading Norwegian newspaper last weekend lambasted Israel and Judaism and said Israel has lost its right to exist in its present form.

Entitled "God's chosen people," the article by author Jostein Gaarder in Aftenposten is raising a storm in Norway. Gaarder, author of the book "Sophie's World," links the Israel Defense Forces' acts in Lebanon to Jewish history and foresees the coming dismantling of the state as it exists today, with the Jews becoming refugees.

‘George W. Bush knows how to get Generals to concur with his disastrous plans: he fires all that disagree and promotes the numbskulls who agree. When Bush wanted to invade Iraq, General Shinseki warned that it would require a few hundred thousand troops ... not to win the war, but rather to secure the peace. Bush and his people -- Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz chief among them -- disagreed. They fired Shinseki and, of course, we all know now that the General knew exactly what he was talking about and that the President and his people were fools.

‘Embattled wheat exporter AWB has been dealt another blow, with Iraqi citizens seeking massive damages from the company for its role in the oil-for-food kickbacks scandal.

A civil lawsuit, filed in a US court today on behalf of northern Iraqi people, seeks $255 million in damages from AWB in conjunction with action against European bank BNP Paribas.

from the courier mail …..

By Terry Sweetman

December 15

‘Downer no longer has anything to contribute.

‘Slush funds, oil sheiks, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney - it's a scandal that has it all, corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it - even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war.

from The Nation …..

‘Jimmy Carter, by publishing his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, walked straight into the buzz saw that is the Israel lobby. Among the vitriolic attacks on the former President was the claim by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, that Carter is "outrageous" and "bigoted" and that his book raises "the old canard and conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government." Many Democratic Party leaders, anxious to keep the Israel lobby's money and support, have hotfooted it out the door, with incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing that Carter "does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."

how to achieve democracy in australia.

delegitimize the rule of politicians by leaving your ballot blank. publicize your demand for democracy by writing " cir-now!" on the ballot.

that was easy, wasn't it? if only one person does it, nothing happens, as well i know. but if the day ever comes when 10% of the electorate does this, cir will happen. since elections are commonly lost by much fewer votes, when a losing party realizes their margin of failure can be attributed to not espousing cir, there will be a seismic shift in australian politics.

this will of course require that you do not 'participate' in your 'democratic duty'. it takes a bit of education, a bit of reflection, to realize where real democratic duty lies, especially if you still get a thrill out of being invited to lick the electoral boots of your parliamentary 'star'.

‘I'm fascinated when ideas that are almost universally embraced as true are also wrong.

Consider the following example, from a New York Times story about Iraq's proposed oil law:

from The Guardian

Blair blames Iran for Middle East conflicts

Wednesday December 20, 2006