While the mainstream media focuses on losers and winners in the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a largely unreported debate is going on over the future course of U.S. diplomacy. Its outcome will have a profound effect on how Washington projects power - both diplomatic and military - in the coming decade.

What does the prime minister stand for, and when will we find out about it?

Way up in the Flinders, where they store the toxic waste
there roams a fearsome canine- two headed and two-faced
as the greedy politicians who run from his mutant bark
The locals call him Bingo, The Dingo Who Glows In The Dark

That's not the wind that's howling, that's Bingo in the Ranges
sniffing out the senators storing scary stuff for strangers
Wherever you might find a place for nuclear waste to park
that's where you'll find Bingo, the Dingo Who Glows In The Dark

After weeks of their very public feud bubbling away and stealing much of the oxygen in the Senate, Attorney-General George Brandis QC and solicitor-general Justin Gleeson QC will both appear before a Senate inquiry today.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will not say if he will allow a parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage after his plan for a plebiscite was blocked by the Opposition.

The MMMMM (majority of the mediocre mass media de mierda) is scared — except the Murdoch media... What scares the media is that Le Donald could still win the Presidential elections in November, DESPITE acting like a goose and a fool, and being a goose and a fool — and despite the media panning him shitless.

The JIT report into the downing of MH17 in the Ukraine is no more than a sorry charade of an investigation. The victims and their families surely deserve better, writes James O'Neill.

Australia now has its worst unemployment figures since 1942. Contrary to the
official (read bogus) government figures of 6%, our real unemployment rate is 11% and rising. Compounding this, a staggering 19% of the workforce is either unemployed or underemployed. (Roy Morgan, 2016).

In his glorification of Menzies, John Howard took us on a tour of a grocer shop, aka run by Ronnie Barker. Menzies was astute enough to know his limitations, during a time when shopkeepers were the soul of king and country, without much intellectual density. It went all down from there in the Liberal (conservative) party, apart from John Gorton who knew his socialism was going to get him in trouble in a party concentrating on selling noodles for glorious profit and voted himself out of being the shop-keeper.

On Friday 30 September, on the eve of two football finals, the start of school holidays and a long weekend that would concentrate the attention of a large portion of the Australian population, an event took place relevant to the standard of living of all Australians.

In the wise words of Groucho Marx: “He may look like an idiot & talk like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

from Crikey ...

Set aside two minutes to read this and watch a 20 minute video. It will truly astonish you, no matter how cynical you may be when it comes to the so-called ‘war on terror’, Iraq, Syria and many other conflicts around the world.