Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

If recent news reports are accurate, some form of that day of reckoning may soon be upon us as now-Attorney General Holder weighs the possibility of appointing a federal prosecutor to probe the Bush administration’s use of torture during the interrogation of detainees captured in the “war on terror.”

Australia’s grim record on health care for Indigenous people is by far the worst of any developed nation. Developed? How can a country be “developed” when it leaves so many of its children behind? Australia has not provided its citizens with an equal opportunity for primary health care, education, housing, employment, let alone recognition and a life of dignity.

The latest update from the Democratic Audit program at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, on how our democracy is working.

With the recent scoping studies for the proposed 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report due out in 2014 suggesting a downplaying of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as a significant driver of (catastrophic) climate change it is time that scientists can speak and publish freely without suffering ad hominem attacks (or threats to funding) and that the media (and blog sites) report their findings honestly and accurately.

Yoo, who is a visiting law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., asserted that the President had unlimited powers to prosecute the “war on terror” on American soil and could ignore constitutional rights, including First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press and Fourth Amendment requirements for search warrants.

There are many good human beings amongst us; human beings like my Dad and The Flying Dragon Ghost who did good and were motivated by the right stuff. There are also many people who have contributed to Webdiary who are decent and understanding human beings – passionate. These are the people we need, people who will play the game in the interests of all; or even better – not play games at all. On that note it’s now time to withdraw from this little game and disappear into the ether ...

Inherent in any attempt at challenging published scientific theories is the need to conduct research, or advance discussions, submitted to the peer-reviewed scientific literature: the core of the scientific process allowing discrimination between credible scientific work and ambit claims. ... Not so the so-called "climate change sceptics" who, rather than follow scientific procedures, mostly publish in politically friendly media channels.

Notice something about many of Malcolm Turnbull’s critics? Ron Boswell? Wilson Tuckey? Bronwyn Bishop? They’re relics from the 1980s. Turnbull’s Herculean labour of making the Coalition relevant in the post-Howard era is made all the more difficult by the stain-like persistence of a number of backbenchers who not merely occupy seats that could be used to launch the careers of the next generation of party talent, but actively undermine their leader. (Bernard Keane)

John Lyons is not the first observer to note that has no intention of resuming peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in the near future. But his observations are newsworthy precisely because his comments were published in the Australian – Murdoch’s flagship in Australia which is known for its strongly pro-Israeli stance. Had these comments been published somewhere else then, the hue and cry from certain quarters would have been unbearable.

If we continue down this path, where Australia’s youth engage too heavily in fast food media and not enough in real news, we will be doing democracy in this country a huge disservice. Democracy depends on knowledgeable citizens. It depends on transparency of government and business, and it depends on a well-functioning media that offers every person, not just the elite, an opportunity to access accurate and unbiased information of substance. (Chloe Adams)

With no intermediate targets defined, no clean energy technology assistance given to developing countries, come 2050, a magic wand will be waved, carbon emissions will be cut by 80 percent, mean temperatures limited below 2 degrees C, and pigs will fly.

As a ghost of China’s living past lay in fading silence I could see my Pumpkin had reconnected with someone she loved and a country they both cared for. It was wonderful to see Pumpkin get her wish and meet her special Ghost who in spite of everything stood the fiery test of virtues held true. He was a good Ghost, a humble Ghost who worked as one of the team and did good things for the people he loved.

Few Australian journalists have considered what role (if any) the Australian government may have played or at least what knowledge it may have had of the torture of Australian citizens at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Rudd is not reluctant to teach others the lessons that the global economic crisis has taught him. He says the G20 must be given the job of coordinating measures to end the crisis. He fears that the world’s richest and most powerful nations, represented by the G8, cannot do it alone.

We are still in the midst of understanding the consequences of the global financial crisis and the actions of governments (including Australia's) in response to it. Importantly, it remains uncertain to what degree Australia's comparatively successful performance in navigating through this catastrophe has been due to regulatory foresight or just good luck. We would do well not to discount the possibility that a "good roll of the dice" left us without more significant system failures such as those seen in Britain. In future crises, we may not be so lucky.

For years, the world has been witnessing a quiet but monumental shift of power from men to women. Today, the Great Recession has turned what was an evolutionary shift into a revolutionary one. The consequence will be not only a mortal blow to the macho men’s club called finance capitalism that got the world into the current economic catastrophe; it will be a collective crisis for millions and millions of working men around the globe. (Reihan Salam)

Joe Hockey, the shadow treasurer, told a business lunch today that the Rudd Government had a case for reneging on its promised tax cuts and it should have considered doing so to rein in the budget deficit. Mr Hockey also gave a candid assessment of the Howard government's economic record. (Mark Colvin)

Mona welcomed us both with nie hao/s and hugs then escorted us towards the back room as the girls chattered in crescendo. I wondered why the girls where getting excited but then I got distracted – by now the room was humming harder. I tried to do cartwheels across the floor – but I can’t do cartwheels – so I hopped up and down on one leg.

"The Obama administration agreed to reprocess the documents, but it continues to withhold many key details related to the Defence Department's use of torture methods. In some documents, the Obama administration has withheld details that were previously disclosed by the Bush administration." - Jason Leopold

What makes the publication even more unusual is Wakim and Zwier’s message. They do not subscribe to either side’s narrative but are motivated instead by a will for dialogue in reconciliation. At the same time they do not spare their verbal rod from either Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu or Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas( Abu Mazen).