Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Since then it's been a thousand years
a hundred lands of joys and tears
In every generation's eyes
I look for her, to apologise

"I would also like to inform you today that the autonomous Management and Standards Committee, which was established by the Company to ensure full cooperation with all investigations, has completed its review of The Times and The Sunday Times, assisted by outside counsel, Linklaters. We found no evidence of illegal conduct other than a single incident reported months ago, which led to the discipline of the relevant employee." -Rupert Murdoch

This is a strange game of poker, in which the slightly dodgy reputations of both these men have been the fulcrum of a Gillard parliamentary majority, and many cards played in attempting to bluff both into "folding".

" So I can assure you, like I am today, I will be out there in the public debate explaining the purpose for why we are in Afghanistan, how it is in the national interests of Australians for us to be there, how we went there, motivated by the terrorist attacks we saw on 9/11, but understanding that these attacks, attacks which took Australian lives and the attacks that subsequently flowed, found their training in Afghanistan, their support in Afghanistan. That's why we went, as well as, of course, standing by our ally the United States of America." - PM Julia Gillard

The state can't employ police to play games with their own lives.  If a policeman is confronted by a man armed with a knife and within lunging distance we have the only situation in which new disabling technology such as Tasers or capsicum spray might have a place. Without them the policeman must fire his pistol and shoot to kill.  If he has a Taser or capsicum spray perhaps there is an alternative, We now have an ambiguous situation. 

Now I don't just mean, "Oh, they don't like workers" or "they'll be worse for the environment", though these things are true. I mean that this group of people do not have everyday competence.

The weird thing is that Abbott opposes the company tax cut, but opposes the mining tax. Apart from the weirdness of the ideological implications here, how is right to keep taxes high for struggling employers, yet not tax a an industry rolling in money?