from Crikey ….. 

Banks dig in over RBA cut 

Some serious misunderstanding has arisen between Kevin Rudd's office and George W. Bush's White House. It concerns a telephone conversation between Bush and Rudd. Let me give you the chronology. 

The bubble world of George W. Bush was bound to burst.  

Based on fantasies, false promises, lies, and bait-and-switch tactics, it was destined for foreclosure.  

New South Wales Small Business Minister Tony Stewart has been stood down from Cabinet over allegations he verbally abused and touched a female staff member at a charity event last month.  

The Premier's office moved the female staffer out of Mr Stewart's office as soon as the allegations emerged.  

It isn't long since Burg was a blue-chip member of that same Zionist establishment. The son of a long-serving government minister, from the time of David Ben-Gurion's government, he has a classic top-drawer Israeli profile.  

President Bush has been making a big hullabaloo over the fact that the Iraqi regime has not signed on to an agreement that would authorize U.S. forces to remain in Iraq after December 31.  

Bush says that if an agreement is not signed between him and the Iraqi government, he will cease military operations in Iraq, keeping his military forces inside U.S. bases within Iraq.  

NEWS Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has warned Australia will miss out on an approaching 'golden age' of prosperity and freedom unless we undertake radical reform, scale back Government and embrace the free market.

Delivering the first of six Boyer lectures at the Sydney Opera House today, Mr Murdoch declared Australia was not prepared for future challenges it faced such as the global financial crisis and lamented many would learn the hard way as a result. 

Muscle man-turned-actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger has called on Barack Obama to beef up his policies - and his body - at a high-voltage campaign rally for Republican John McCain. 

Senior CIA officers could be put on trial in Britain after it emerged last night that the Attorney General is to investigate allegations that a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay was brutally tortured, after being arrested and questioned by American forces following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. 

Despite the fact that al-Qaeda recently endorsed John McCain, the Bush administration is warning that (deep from within Cheney's bunker) bin Laden is about to release a pre-election tape.  

'Magine that! Who saw this coming?  

Australian Industry Group head Heather Ridout has criticised the Government's modelling of an emissions trading scheme as a 'Tardis' approach which lacks key details.

Ms Ridout says Australia should not 'be wedded' to a 2010 start up date for an emissions trading scheme, especially if international moves to cut emissions are looking doubtful. 

The Vatican acknowledges that psychological tests could help identify candidates for the Catholic priesthood who show homosexual tendencies, according to a document. 

While condoning the use of such tests by Catholic seminaries, the document approved by Pope Benedict XVI says they must be strictly voluntary. 

The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election.  

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm.  

Exxon Mobil Corp. smashed its own record for quarterly profits today, ringing up $14.8 billion in net income in the third quarter powered by soaring summertime crude oil prices. 

Exxon Mobil's earnings, at $2.86 a share, are up 58 percent from the same period in 2007 and higher than what analysts expected, capping a week of strong profit numbers from the world's biggest oil companies, all of whom benefited from the spike in oil prices in July.  

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has reached out to US voters in a half-hour, prime-time advertisement on seven US TV channels six days before polling. 

The broadcast came as the Democratic senator appeared with former president Bill Clinton at a rally in Florida.