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Submitted by Guest Contributor on December 3, 2010 - 6:01am.
Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboarding"
 An absolute prohibition against experiments on prisoners of war is contained in the Geneva Conventions, but President George W. Bush stripped war on terror detainees of those protections. Some of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" also had an experimental quality.
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Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on December 1, 2010 - 5:43pm.
Capitalism: the Emperor without any clothes
The purpose of this essay is to dethrone the king, not kill him. Man is a tool making animal. Capitalism, money and free markets are tools. They have their strengths and they have their weaknesses. We should not idolize them. We should not let them run our society.
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Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on November 10, 2010 - 5:05pm.
What is Climate Change?
What becomes immediately obvious is that there is more agreement than disagreement. Nevertheless, it has been said that a chain is as strong as its weakest link, and laying the issues out clearly explains why so many people are so cautious about the emissions trading bill.
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on October 25, 2010 - 9:52pm.
Questions, Answers, Hicks and hurled shoes: Heeeere's Johnny!
Remember a few years back when that journalist threw his shoes at Bush in a traditional gesture of contempt?  The scene was replicated by one of Howard's questioners, who hurled his shoes in Howard's direction, yelling "That is for the Iraqi dead"
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Submitted by Geoff Pahoff on October 15, 2010 - 3:27pm.
A few thoughts on the peace talks
It was always a long shot but it is dispiriting seeing the same old obstacles and smoke screens as the last time and the time before and the time before right back to the very start.. Ultimately the peace talks, if they are about anything at all, are about one big real estate deal. 
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 13, 2010 - 4:45pm.
Afghanistan: we need an honest debate
For the last nine years, Coalition governments have lauded the possibilities offered by a centralised Afghan democracy with a powerful government in Kabul. But the cultural and ethnic dynamics of Afghanistan make this a very difficult and unlikely outcome.
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Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on October 11, 2010 - 5:02pm.
The Awakening Dragon
One other point, however, is worth repeating. They will act in their own best interest, but are not out to overcome or crush us.
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Submitted by Geoff Pahoff on October 2, 2010 - 5:53pm.
This is worth everything
I don't deny that the war streak might eventually kill us all. In the meantime it will cause untold misery on a vast scale. But there is another side to our nature and we all know this. I think the old religions are right when they teach there is good and bad in us all. It's just that the mix varies enormously. 
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Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on October 2, 2010 - 2:19pm.
The Private Health Insurance Rebate Rip-off
The argument that is made is that the patients are diverted to the private sector, so it saves the public hospital costs. What really happens is clear when we look at the details
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on September 23, 2010 - 2:57pm.
Shagging in the Speaker's Chair
While Abbott has suggested the Libs will accept Harry Jenkins back in the chair, if Abbott decides to play his usual gutter game, he could vote against a Labor nominee. If one independant abstains, the vote will be tied.
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Submitted by John Pratt on September 19, 2010 - 3:08pm.
How to win a cosmic war
A war between “good” and “evil” is a cosmic war. A cosmic war is not a war over land or resources as such a strong army cannot prevail in a cosmic war. The battle ground of a cosmic war is the mind.
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on September 18, 2010 - 12:13pm.
crone
crone
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on September 14, 2010 - 6:12pm.
Greens- a new beginning on asylum seekers?
"We need to do better in providing information to the Australian people, to help them understand that asylum-seekers are not to be feared, and that their numbers are small compared to the 50,000 overseas visitors who overstay their visas every year,'
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Submitted by GetUp on September 12, 2010 - 6:01pm.
GetUp goes in with Gunns blazing
This victory has proved that when we mobilise in numbers, we can demand far more from unsustainable Australian companies. Right now we're considering what more GetUp could achieve in the next few years.
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on September 10, 2010 - 11:29am.
Koran burning, cultural suppression... has America grown up?
By broadcasting his claimed success in having the Islamic centre moved he's demonstrated how much power can fall into the hands of a religious crank, and how easily such a person could make the world wobble.
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Submitted by John Pratt on September 10, 2010 - 10:18am.
Mission creep in Afghanistan
Australia is a small country and we cannot afford to waste lives or resources. We have growing threats much closer to home than Afghanistan and we should be concentrating on these threats. We should be fighting real terrorists, not chasing ghosts or nation building in distant countries that are no threat to Australia.
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Submitted by David Roffey on September 8, 2010 - 2:38pm.
Server move
We've just been informed that the site will be migrated to new hardware sometime in the next 7 days - the exact date is pending. This will incur some downtime, and may result in unforeseen issues with the site. If you notice anything wrong with the site over this period please let me know at gm-at-webdiary.com.au
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on September 7, 2010 - 3:24pm.
Labor 76 Liberal 74
A new dawn in Australian politics?
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Submitted by Paul Walter on September 6, 2010 - 9:25am.
What would a "stable" minority government look like?
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?
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Submitted by John Pratt on September 6, 2010 - 9:15am.
Is Australia a racist country?
"So what the committee is recommending to Australia is not only we completely remove the suspension - which we haven't yet done - but we entrench in the constitution a provision so that never again can race discrimination law be suspended in Australia." (Graeme Innes)
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on September 3, 2010 - 11:02pm.
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on September 3, 2010 - 10:20pm.
groundwater
groundwater
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Submitted by Keith Warren on September 3, 2010 - 12:38am.
Fear and Loathing Down Under
Had ALP policy allowed Julia Gillard to publicly and passionately slam Tony Abbott to the canvas on this issue, we may not be in the political deadlock we now find ourselves locked into until we go to the polls again.
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Submitted by Jay Somasundaram on August 22, 2010 - 6:47pm.
Politics for the 21st Century
The twenty first century is about collaboration. Unfortunately, our system actually works against collaboration. We demand differences in policies. We demand an entertaining circus, with each party at each others’ throats.
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on August 21, 2010 - 5:42pm.
Why I voted Blank
By the time I reached the front of the queue and received my ballot papers, I was finally convinced of what was the right thing to do.  Steeling myself, I walked straight to the slots and lodged my vote.
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on August 19, 2010 - 3:38pm.
The 2010 Charles Todd Memorial Oration
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.)
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on August 19, 2010 - 3:18pm.
The Last Resident of Acland
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)
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on August 19, 2010 - 2:44am.
Seeing Red About The Election
If everything  from a political leader's mouth comes from an arsehole, why not vote for an egg? Get a giggle from the Sunny The Egg campaign ad on Youtube and you'll be in the mood for Jessica Rudd's Campaign Ruby.
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Submitted by Democratic Audit on August 16, 2010 - 12:09pm.
Democratic Audit Update - Election extra
A special Election 2010 update from the Democratic Audit program at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on August 13, 2010 - 2:26pm.
Halliburton: Australia's Ghost Writer? A film review (of sorts)
While Halliburton (name-morphing into subsidiary KBR) was co-ordinating worldwide infrastructure projects from Adelaide and assisting the Coalition of the Willing to invade Iraq, our State Government's leader Premier Mike Rann was taking advice from a prominent US Homeland Security Advisor named Scott Bates. Bates, a prominent architect in the implementation of democracy into post-war Kosovo, was rumoured to be Hillary Clinton's intended successor as U.S. President.
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