Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Certainly if Assange could be  prevented from gaining asylum, it makes it so much more difficult to re-establish the rights of others also seeking asylum, elsewhere ( which could partly also explain the Australian government's timid response to Assange's plight).

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?

This appendix is provoked by the first skirmish in this year's Culture Wars, relating to Morals campaigner (and bully?) Meryl Tankard Reist's legal attempt to stifle the small, eclectic and amiable blogsite, No Place For Sheep,a newish site operated by psychologist Dr Jennifer Wilson.

You begin to suspect that governments here will be thinking more carefully about where shrinking revenues might be used and the question that comes to mind is, who/what will be preserved and who/what what may be jeopardised or jettisoned.

I look back on the week somewhat amazed, both at the events and the strange treatment of them in the press and wonder what lies in the future, as a sort of lawlessness now permeates once civilised societies.

The real wolves, back in the US are likely sharpening their knives (teeth?) in its wake, to find out who will be the new tycoon when the old man gets kicked upstairs.

If, as expected, the conservative indies indicate in public and solid form whom they support very shortly, who will have the better chance of forming stable government and what will be the results?

"There is a Homeric, epic quality about this tournament.  Mighty teams like the Spanish and the French choke at psychological moments and unheralded teams like the Koreans and Swiss take the opportunity for a moment in the sunshine perhaps anticipated for a generation"- Paul Walter

We were all glad to see the back of Howard at one stage, but now the People are calling on Rudd Labor, in no uncertain terms, to unpack its alternative and fulfill its promises to Australians, rather than just slumming with those interests whos aims are contrary to the ordinary Australian.

Scales fell away, as to the latter, after his performance earlier in the week, on Q & A. Reminds the writer of one of these dead fish you keep seeing washed up on teev news from the gulf oil spill.

People start to talk of "othering" - it's an ugly proposition to contemplate in this actuality, if you ask if we Australians are virtually "taking hostages", as some have put it, to our own uncertainties for our own futures?

Rann’s alleged antics with a barmaid in parliament some time back has focussed the public’s consciousness back on the Rann government and its policies, outlook and decisions; to “hear” alternate messages from the Liberals (usually ) on one hand and /or excluded or silenced social groups.

Which brings us to a separate issue, yet one with tentative connections to the one mentioned above – the spectacular dumping of the contentious Traveston mega-dam in south east Queensland, which represents a belated day in the sun for the long-maligned Peter Garrett and more eclipse for Labor's cover-girl of such a short time ago, Anna Bligh.

My view is that there is a semantic confusion between "abortion" in its most negative, "laden", and controversial sense and what I would describe as "retrospective contraception", particularly involving RU486.

It's about time the convenient yes minister-type arrangements for the Murray-Darling catchment allowing state government interference based on cronyism against genuine reform of resources management, were ended, and a governing body capable of making the changes necessary for that protection were incorporated, as promised in 2007.

This budget reflects the government's definitive move away from its ambit of 2007. It does this under cover of the real issue of  the global recession, induced by international financiers in the wake of neolib deregulation, comfortable in the knowledge that this once it can't be blamed personally.

As to Hanson herself, you have to wonder at the cultural background that created the woman she was: women’s upbringing and enculturisation (and men’s), gender relations, and politics in general over the last couple of centuries and post ww2 in particular, perhaps against a sort of back drop of the sort of stuff that Prof Marilyn Lake discussed, concerning the Henry Lawson Bronzed Anzac / Pioneer myth and its sidelining of women...

I'd argue that Gunns since the 'nineties is a subspecies of the privatisation/ PPP's phenomena that occurred over the last generation, forced on communities by burgeoning globalisation coupled with a giant con perpetrated by politicians and corporate interests on apathetic Western publics.

The death of Nightline and Sunday is a strange story, a saga of the deterioration of a once mighty media empire with current events appearing to be a late and inevitable consequence…

The thin, fragile, wavery line that distinguishes democracy from something akin to Pol Pot or Pinochet is, at the eleventh hour, reaffirmed by the court.   There are certain positions that are just not negotiable. 

In this sort of fevered environment, where "morals" are defined in terms of sexual behaviour, the Mirandas become rails runners for opinion dominance. And faux outrage over dubious artworks is just another obvious mode for distraction from real world issues.