Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"Iraq’s children have suffered more than just successive wars and economic sanctions. The loss of parents and family resources has boosted child labor, homelessness, and inclinations towards violence and rebellion. They often now live in homes where 25 people live in a space of 40 square meters. Even intact families may comprise parents and five children in a single six-meter room." Amal Kashf Al-Ghitta

David McKnight’s Beyond Right and Left: New Politics and the Culture Wars was reviewed on Webdiary back in October. McKnight is essentially a politician whose analysis of the capture of the parties of the left by the market imperative is used as a basis for a program for regeneration of the left. Almost simultaneously with McKnight’s Australian publication, a very different analysis by a right-wing sociologist, Frank Furedi, was published in the UK: Politics of Fear: beyond left and right (London & New York, Continuum). David Roffey reviews it.

"The Government may have acted quickly last year to quash any backbench discussion about banning headscarves from public schools but it is an issue that needs to be discussed in depth, not only for the sake of the children involved, but for the sake of our society in general." Roslyn Ross

"Peter Costello is right. If you can’t commit to Australian values, we should put you on a boat and send you out to sea you later. Democratic beliefs, respect for the rights and liberty of others, and respect for the rule of law are our core beliefs "Those who are outside this compact threaten the rights and liberties of others," the Treasurer warned at his speech to the Sydney Institute. Amen to that." Chris Saliba

"We live in an age of accountability. We are more accountable than we have ever been in the past." - John Howard on the occasion of his tenth anniversary as Prime Minister of Australia. Do we really live in an age of accountability? Do you trust Honest John's account of his track record on government accountability? Craig Rowley

"It was when the young policeman started twisting the wrist of the old man lying on the ground that I started asking the question yesterday: am I in another country?" Donna Mulhearn

"Your appointment strengthens my confidence that still outstanding serious issues raised with your predecessor, Senator Robert Hill, and members of the Australian Defence Forces, will now be quickly resolved." John Richardson, writing to new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson

Webdiary GM David Roffey provides our monthly report on site statistics, revenue and sundry.

"For most of the twentieth century, programmers were patently unsuccessful in designing chess computers that could compete with the best humans. A human chess master’s ability to intuit, visualise, and prioritise easily prevailed over the brute force approach of computers. The computers gradually improved, but they still seemed far inferior to the top humans. Or so we thought." Kenneth Rogoff

"John Howard’s recent comments concerning the asylum seeker boat SIEV 4 that was central to the ‘children overboard’ senate inquiry are disappointing but not surprising. Falsely accused of throwing their children overboard, he maintains the boat passengers don’t deserve an apology as "they irresponsibly sank the damn boat, which put their children in the water", which is as untrue as the allegation that they threw their kids into the water. He has conveniently forgotten to mention that ADF personnel were under orders to override safety of life at sea conventions by delaying rescue until passengers of asylum seeker boats were in the water, rather than when it became apparent the boat was going to sink." Sue Hoffman

"Aborigines, like many indigenous peoples in the world, have become something akin to insects ‘pinned’ into a specimen box. The community at large feels ‘guilty’ about the fact that our ancestors conquered and dispossessed them and so we try to make amends by believing that the best thing we can do is ‘help’ them to hold on to their culture; to ‘pin’ them into a place that diminishes our guilt and supposedly helps to ‘right the wrongs’ of the past." Roslyn Ross

Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of the "new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met this fate since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have mourned the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of education stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education staff were killed and 133 wounded. Not one of these crimes has been investigated by the occupation forces or the interim governments. There is now a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation." Haifa Zangana

"In the United States, individual states that follow unsound fiscal policies face a penalty. Their bonds sell at a discount relative to those of better-managed individual states. The higher debt service they must pay serves – to some degree – as a form of discipline against the temptation to spend now and pay later." J Bradford Delong