Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

UPDATE: Webdiary is unsinkable once more, thanks to the wit, wisdom, and work of Nigel Sim. Many thanks, Nigel.

.....or we'll rip yer bloody arms off.....

What’s driving this show of meanness? You might say it’s just what the electorate—or some loud part thereof—wants. It seems like there are some seriously angry voters out there these days, and I’m sure the recession is taking a toll on people’s patience and generosity. And yet, I suspect this is no fleeting trend, but something with deeper ideological roots. In short, I sense Ayn Rand. (Firmin DeBrabander)

The rest is silence.

STEVE KEEN: Level of assets have got three letters at the front ASS. I think we should take them importantly. Assets can collapse in value overnight, as we've seen today, your liabilities remain there, and it's liabilities that are driving this debt crisis.

We would like to place ourselves at your mercy and request a stay of execution for our television program, The Chaser's Royal Wedding Commentary.

"Your conduct is a most fundamental breach of trust and it is an attack on the institution of the family which is so dear to the community." - His Honour Justice Coghlan on sentencing Arthur Freeman to life in prison for the murder of his daughter Darcey.

In memory of longtime Webdiarist Malcolm B. Duncan. His delightful writing, wit, insight, and generosity will be greatly missed.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who should know better, criticise the NBN because it is not going to generate the sort of returns that private investors would be seeking. I wonder if Charles Todd’s Overland Telegraph suffered the same criticisms. If you recall it cost £480,000. But it was decades before the Overland Telegraph generated a positive return on investment. Annual revenues from telegraph traffic during the first decade of operation were only £12,000. (Mike Quigley, CEO of NBN Co.)

I do have a vision for Australia. And I won't be consulting the telephone book to refine it, and I won't be asking you to suspend belief unless it is written down. The Greens are the smaller party with the big ideas for Australia, up against the bigger parties with the small ideas. That's why, next Saturday, Australians who seek an assured, secure and exciting future, should go to the ballot box with a new purpose in mind and vote Greens! (Senator Bob Brown)

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming - reviewed by Robin McKie of The Observer.

Paul Keating: I take issue with and repudiate those who assert that privacy in modern times is dead and, that we should get over it. And with those who claim the current framework within which the media deals with privacy issues and concerns is effective and works well. It is of course, ineffective and works, in the main, to the benefit of media organisations.

Laurie Oakes: "You told Malcolm Turnbull once that you were a weathervane. Does Australia need a weathervane as a Prime Minister?"

For a few (few = three +) years some Webdiarists (some = three +) have been asking for a Cooks’ Corner (or should that be Korner?). Eh bien, it’s the weekend, and I’ve spent the last three months (with a bit of time out for good behaviour – erm, winter hols) at a school (collecting data). One of the things that happens in a school staffroom, over those snatched moments of ... morning tea / lunch is that recipes are sometimes discussed (and/or disgusted).

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)

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)

Probably two significant moments in my career that I hadn’t really thought about until around, funnily enough, the semi-final in the World Cup in 2003 after the well-documented walking incident in that match. That was the catalyst for me to start thinking and thinking why have I got this approach. (Adam Gilchrist on "walking")

The charging of people who arrive on our shores seeking protection the costs of their detention is part of the way in which we have demonised them and presented them as being worse than criminals. And this image, I believe, underpins the abuses which have been discovered by inquiries into our mistreatment of people in detention. (Petro Georgiou)

So there are some questions that may be interesting to discuss. The longevity one, what next for Iran, and doubtless several more that others can raise. In the meantime, yesterday, as most Webdiarists will be aware, Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei delivered an address at the University of Tehran’s Friday prayers. The following is a summary from the Guardian.

"How would Australia be different if he were prime minister? What are his most closely held policy convictions? I asked dozens of Malcolm Turnbull's political colleagues this question, asking them to name three. Many of them had to pause before responding. (Annabel Crabb)

One of the ALP’s 2007 election pledges was to deal with perceived loopholes regarding political donations. In 2008 Senator Faulkner said, "Reforms to the donation disclosure regime are a priority because, in order to be fully effective, they must operate by the start of the next financial year." So, what happened in the Senate yesterday?

Imagine a welfare scheme that gave minimum wage earners nothing, but handed out $11,000 a year to those on the top income tax rate. Surely if any political party ever suggested such a scheme they would be run out of parliament and have their doors kicked down by commercial current affairs programs. (Centre for Policy Development)

In The Next 100 Years, George Friedman offers a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century. (Black Inc Publishing)

You identified with the broken-hearted, with the wounded spirits, with the loss, the grieving and the terrible unprecedented trauma that is being experienced right now. I know there are people who will wake every morning believing that it was all a dream; that it did not happen. And then they will realise it was not a dream and they will cry and they will cry again. (Russell Broadbent)

The finalists for Australian of the Year, and their biographies, appear below. What are Webdiarists’ views on the likely winner – and if none of the below appeals, who would you have nominated instead, and why?

The Australian Human Rights Commission says asylum seekers are still being treated like political footballs and enduring "miserable" conditions at some immigration detention centres...The Government says conditions are improving and it is committed to a set of immigration values. But the Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, has told Naomi Woodley in Canberra that he's still waiting to see if those values translate into actual changes. (Brendan Trembath, Radio National's AM)

The decision to axe one of this network's most distinctive and important programs has been approved by the director of ABC Radio, Sue Howard, and it will condemn Radio National to even greater irrelevance. (Stephen Crittenden)

Oliver Stone's latest film W has just been released in the US. It covers the period from George W Bush's student days at Yale to 2004, the last year of his first presidential term. Its reception has, to put it mildly, been mixed.

It was only when the Webdiary mailbox started bulging with contributions late this week that we realized that having a piece published on Webdiary was part of the students’ assessment in their Online Journalism unit...

Just in: NSW Premier Morris Iemma has resigned shortly after sacking his Treasurer, Michael Costa. Minister for Water, Nathan Rees, is expected to be the new Premier.