The Australian Index - Politics Blogs

"Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or "official drivel", as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of 5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: "Every day

Any artist brave enough to get up on stage wearing this gear has got to qualify as a hero. The small challenges & accomplishments that become just an everyday part of people's working lives are seldom weighed by their impact, even when they are as memorable as Sly's headwear.

Online Opinion graciously allows public ethics professor Clive Hamilton a platform to have a whinge against it and about how he won't write for Online Opinion again. Reason? Because it publishes climate change denialists who are compared to AIDS denialists, S11 truthers and LaRouchites. This sounds like a very confident statement of belief from someone who confesses that 'I do not presume to

When first the land was ours we thought
that things would never change
- there'd always be the same green hills,
clear rivers and rich range,
and east of us the sparkling beach,
the mangroves, forests tall
- in our innocence we though
we'd always have them all ... We cleared the land and ploughed it
and wind and flood-rains came
and stripped away the living skin
and left the bony frame.
W

None of them have ever been implicated in a murder/cover-up before taking office.

If Najib does manage to become Prime Minister in spite of this latest revelation, I think I'd be 90 percent disgusted and 10 percent impressed that he pulled it off. Seriously, in any other democratic country his career would have been over years ago. Not to mention the fact that he'd actually go to jail. (And the b

I continue to watch my menopause process with interest. Every woman will know that cycles are affected by both conscious and unconscious events/incidents/processes. But as my cycles wind down, I've been losing that sense of connection. At the beginning of the year, however, I had a powerful reminder of that link, when my first period in a few months arrived on the anniversary of my mother's death,

The Daily Telecrap alleges that Sophie Mirabella's newborn daughter Alexandra is not a demon. Unless slitty-eyed, frothy-mouthed bigotry can arise from an unfortunate genetic condition I'm inclined to agree with them. It's more like demon-larvae- one day she'll hatch from her innocent child cocoon as a fully fledged deranged bigot and start hating on the gay and muslim kids in highschool. Give the

I've got a choice between reading a paper on international standards in pressure-pipe welding, and what we need to do to get welding contractors up to speed, or write about...Hmm, pressure pipe welding sounds pretty spiffy, eh? Maybe Ha%%y, as he still reads here to find out what I'm up to (don't laugh mate, so does Mrs VVB...) can give me a few pointers. Where are the reputable international

With the support of the Labor Government, former Liberal foreign minister Alexander Downer is now likely to become the UN Special Envoy for Cyprus. Although not yet officially announce by the UN itself, Downer made the announcement himself from London where he is involved in private discussions about his future. The 56 year old South Australian said Australia has a humanitarian interest in a resol

In November, Surf Coast residents will be voting for new people to represent them at a local government level.

Most Australian voters don't pay attention to local politics, and with single ward elections, absolute shonks get voted in. These shonks usually come in two forms: developer shonks and power trippers. Media coverage of local elections is very patchy at best, and it usually focuses on shi

So we now have our technology platform up for GoLow there are still bits to do, but I suppose that anyone with a technology related business needs to be ready for changes and amendments. At least it means that we can still do a beta trial very soon. This will hopefully assist in our [...]

Here's a more upbeat story to report on. Over at Abandon Skip, there's a post on the popularity of the song De La Rey amongst Afrikaners in South Africa. The song has become something of an anthem for Afrikaners, expressing a pride in their own identity.

There are a couple of things about the situation which impress me. First, it seems to be predominantly young Afrikaners, both male and female, w

It took a year for a honeymoon to turn to divorce: Gordon Brown now leads the most unpopular Labour government in history, according to a...

CLIVE Hamilton had an excellent plan last month when Charles Sturt University made this green preacher its Professor of Public Ethics. "Over the last 20...

Good luck to him: BROADCASTER Alan Jones has prostate cancer but has no plans to give up radio. "We don't do dying around here," Jones...

Stop it. Just stop it. You look stupid when you come out publicly with nonsense like this:

One hundred non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Selangor today handed to Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah a memorandum protesting against the administration of Islamic affairs in the state.

Some 200 representatives of the NGOs, led by Datuk Abdul Rahman Palil, handed the memorandum to the sultan s nava

Even from the distance of Singapore, people can spot Kevin Rudd has not plans but thought bubbles, going nowhere: PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd's plan...

When the Poo got himself into trouble surfing at Winkipop today, he only has himself to blame.

The surf was solid, the sweep was running hard, and surf photographer Steve Ryan warned the Poo about paddling out where he intended to.

Surfing is a risky activity and surfers must calculate what is an acceptable risk. When an experienced surf photographer, who makes a living watching waves warns you

Have you ever wondered what butterflies eat? They actually don't eat anything. They drink nectar from flowers and that's it.

Okay so that's my sad attempt at linking this post to this month's NaBloPoMo's food theme. hehe

Anyway, if you haven't seen in already, check out this fantastic post from Danni at The Butterfly Effect: "She's just a cute Tween...but she grows into a curvy Teen!"

Coincid

Now that Alexander Downer, Queen of the Desert, is coming to help them. After hemming and hawing and doubtless sending surrogates to beg the UN to give him a job, Downer has managed to get... another government job. So much for being so valuable the public sector would be falling all over itself to hire stupid, incompetent former ministers. Downer detaches himself from the Aussie taxpayer's teat t

Sometimes breaking the law is EXTRA fun.

1) Do you have the guts to answer these Qs?
No.2) What would you do if meth was legalized?
Go out of business.3) Abortion: for or against?
Upside-down.4) Would our country fail with a woman president?
Fingers crossed.5) Do you believe in the death penalty?
I think you'll find it's mandatory.6) Are you for or against premarital sex?
Sure, although I sometimes like to have dinner first.7) Do you thi

My sibling unit just called me to tell me he had called our PU#2's mobile and it was answered by the Bendigo station lost property people.

(In case you haven't worked it out by now, we refer to our parents as our parental units. It's from the movie Coneheads. Yes, we are strange).

Anyway, this is typical of my second parental unit. He leaves a scattered trail of objects behind him, perhaps becau

Once Were Punks...I've been reading The Story of Crass by George Berger (Omnibus, 2008). "The author", according to the blurb on the back cover, "has written for Sounds, Melody Maker and Amnesty International among others", and he reads like it too, unfortunately. I may write a review when I finish, but in the meantime, a few things stand out. One is the fact that, as B

One can criticise the courts all one likes, but very often it is they who shape the nature and extent of life in the country. Perhaps their influence is too far-reaching, but ignored it can't be.

It is with those thoughts in mind that the NY Times editorialises on the US Supreme Court decisions in the term just concluded. It doesn't make for happy reading when one reflects on how the appoint

UPDATE: Ice - More Drug Myths Part II AMA Pushing Zero Tolerance

I recently wrote an article, Ice - More Drug Myths about the hysteria surrounding Ice and the non existent epidemic. The AMA has joined in with the hysteria and put out a position statement that is reminiscent of the sensationalist type stories usually left to the Daily Telegraph or the HeraldSun.
===========================

This article in the New York Times is on some crazy scientist who infected himself with hookworm as part of his research into their immunomodulatory effects in preventing allergies, particularly hayfever.

Me? I would do it in a heartbeat. I'm not sure any of the naysayers know just how debilitating hayfever can be- let alone chronic hayfever, like I have. Bring on the worms.

"Say hello to my lit

You can fool people some of the time, but not all the time. Now, in this technological age, it is easy to access and recall statements made whenever and however far back.

So, some words of key players in the lead up to the Iraq War have re-surfaced and Bill Moyers and Michael Winship recall in their piece on truthout "It Was Oil, All Along" on the Iraq War and that it was o

If you ever wished Christopher Hitchens could be tortured for his prose, if not his views, your wish just came true, in the nicest possible way.Hitchens, one of the cheerleaders for the US invasion of Iraq, wilfully bought the administration line, insisting a few months ago that waterboarding is not torture but merely "extreme interrogation" or what the administration likes to call &#

In a time-honored, if not honorable, tradition, Obama has shown, in moving from primary to presidential campaigns, that he too is the master of bait and switch. He now supports what will result in immunity being granted to the telephone companies that chose to help the Bush administration to illegally spy on American citizens-NYT.Blech.