Washington likes to call Myanmar an "outpost of tyranny". Presumably, the curbs by cyclone-hit Myanmar on overseas help for its devastated population by the military dictatorship is done to protect their hold on power and its illegitimate misrule. International aid to allowed to trickle into the country.The regime continues to resist US and UN disaster relief and food aid personnel from entering the country. Read more »

Jeremy Sammut, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, has an op-ed in The Australian on health prevention, lifestyle illness and wellness tha tis based on his recent monographThe False Promise of GP Super Clinics, Part 1: Preventive Care He says that Australian governments have told us to quit smoking, eat moderately and exercise regularly, most memorably through the Life! Read more »

This is Barak Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech delivered at the Constitution Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in March 18, 2008. The text is here. It was a major speech. Read more »

It increasingly looks as if the proposed fibre to node (FTTN) broadband network will be one with competition at the services level, but little competition at the infrastructure level. The national broadband infrastructure will be provided by Telstra, as it looks uneconomic to provide a duplicated infrastructure. Read more »

Has the Iemma government left it to late to privatise its electricity assets (generators and retailers)? Though Costa and Iemma suffered a humiliating 702-107 vote against privatisation at Labor's state conference on the weekend, they are determined to proceed with the sale despite union opposition. Will the government and the unions keep talking? Read more »

Black Liberation theology, as expressed by Reverend Wright, a pastor in the United Church of Christ, is based on classic Christian principles: Read more »

David Barstow in the New York Times disclosed how the Pentagon information apparatus has used friendly military analysts in a publicity campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance. This group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Read more »

Paul Dib makes a good point in an op-ed Sydney Morning Herald about national security: Read more »

Maybe there is some movement on water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin under the Rudd Government. I see that Penny Wong, the Water Minister, holds to the view that we have been taking too much water out of the basin for far too long, that we have overdrawn the Murray and that we now need to restore the balance. The Rudd Government is going to address this spend more than $3 billion to buy back water rights in the Murray-Darling Basin, and that there will be no cuts to existing programs. Read more »

If it's true that Australian universities are in on the conspiracy to overturn western civilisation and turn us all into terrorists, then recent developments suggest that we're totally stuffed. Nobody can save us now. Read more »

Apparently leader Brendan Nelson's future is "in his own hands", according to the drip feed to Shaun Carney at The Age: Spooner

Just in case anybody has been following the 'Griffith Uni promotes terrorism' stories that monument to honest reporting The Australian has been running lately, relax. The heartbeat of the nation is just doing what it does best. Beat. Up, that is. On Tuesday: Read more »

That is not good news---Europe returns to coal which produces more carbon dioxide than oil or natural gas; a return driven by demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy.

Can Clinton overturn Barack Obama’s lead in the contest for the Democratic nomination? It doesn't look possible. The odds are stacked against her. Read more »

Leak

The Roman Catholics have problems with sex. Big problems over and above the decades-old problem of pedophile priests. They don't really like sex. It's a sin for them outside marriage. They see sex outside of marriage as symptomatic of the breakdown of values of liberal society. Leak

There's been plenty of news coverage of what happens when developers are allowed to influence decision making, most recently in Wollongong, but you don't hear much about what happens when they don't get a foot in the door. Read more »

This is the image I have as I leave Australia for two weeks in NZ.Wayne Swan,the Treasurer, sure has changed his tune. After months of planglossianisms he is now incorporating into his talk of tough budget and a protracted period of high interest rates the IMFs language of an 'unstable international outlook and inflation'; and that Australia would not be immune from the financial crisis. Read more »

Has Washington's bubble of optimism about the United States' progress in Iraq been punctured? The signs were there when General David Petraeus, announced a 45-day halt to troop withdrawals from July during highly charged hearings in the Senate in which he faced questions from all three contenders to replace Bush: John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The hearings showed the deep divide on Iraq between McCain, who favours keeping troops in Iraq until security is established, and the two Democrats, who have sought early withdrawal. Read more »

In its latest World Economic Outlook the International Monetary Fund says that a recession in the United States is now inevitable and that there is a 25 per cent chance of a global recession. The IMF estimates total global losses from the deterioration of credit as of March at $945bn. A global recession is a change of tune from the usual boosterism from the IMF. Read more »

Kenneth Davidson in The Age puts his finger on the Brack/Brumby Government's long resistance to the national Murray-Darling Basin plan. In doing so he discloses the way that the politics of the River Murray continues to be about protecting the irrigation industry at the expense of the environment. Read more »

Nine is located somewhere between 7 and 10, and it's an awful long way from 73. Poor Brendan. On the bright side, that leaves 18 percent who could well be swayed by the listening tour. Read more »

As we know Treasury chief Hank Paulson says he doesn’t blame the current regulatory structure for current market turmoil. If it is not the the non-regulatory structure that the US has now, then how do we explain the housing bubble and the credit meltdown and the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street? Paulson's plan is to overhaul” Wall Street by deregulating it not by disciplining financial markets. Read more »

I'm not sure that it's a black and white issue of tariff and protection versus free trade any more now that the Australian economy has been integrated with the global one. Spooner

Well now , the NSW Lemma Government, is increasingly at odds withe reform thrust of the Rudd Government. I tis dragging its heels on water reform, opposes performance targets for its public hospitals and is now talking about climate change in terms of the true believers within the Rudd Government, and their approach mugging the economy and scaring away foreign investors. The latter is argued by NSW Treasurer Michael Costa who articulates the views of the NSW Right in NSW Labor.

Infrastructure is crucially important for the development of user generated content of Web 2 and the shift to the knowledge economy, yet Australia's telecommunications infrastructure is middling to poor. Consider the implications of the Rudd Government's cancellation of the Opel contract, which was designed by the Howard Government to deliver broadband to regional and rural Australia. Read more »

I see that the digital economy bit of the 2020 Summit has disappeared. So where are we on this? Anyone have any ideas? Read more »

Glenn Milne argues in The Australian that the $1 billion paid to the Victorian Government to bring it to the table is neither new nor extra money---it is simply part of Howard's original $10 billion national water funding with the irrigation upgrades in northern Victoria being one of the projects to be considered under the $10 billion. All the rhetoric about that extra $1 billion was spin. Read more »

China's heavy handed repression of Tibetan desires for greater autonomy and cultural independence includes imprisoning those who engage in peaceful demonstration as well as rioters, whilst attacking t the Western media, the Dalai Lama and all those taking part in the protests in language that is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. Read more »

So Australia is off to play its dutiful respects to the imperial Presidency. It's a bit like the old Roman Empire days is it not? Read more »

Speaking of convergence culture, Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like has landed a book deal based on the stuff he blogs. I'm impressed. Read more »

So what do we make of CoAG's Adelaide agreements on health Historic? Read more »

The word coming from the Rudd Government is that CoAG means business. It wlll be the reform workhorse of the nation and it will deliver on the reform promises made in December. Just watch this exciting space of co-operative federalism. with everybody working together an din harmony. Read more »

CoAG meets in Adelaide tomorrow and it appears that the Rudd Government is using this as a way of governing the country and pushing the modernizing agenda. Read more »

One interpretation can be found here on philosophy.com. David Burchell is in the affirmative. Read more »

The crucial policy question is whether the Federal Reserve and other policy officials can prevent the scenario of a systemic financial crisis. The Anglo-Saxon financial system is in a severe crisis, of that there is no doubt. Read more »

Does this particular credit crunch financial meltdown, with its centre in New York, signify that the good times are over for the US, as Rupert Cornwell argues? By all accounts the crisis---market turbulence or volality some sharp elbows call the market crashes, mortgage failures and Read more »

Australian conservatives work in terms of dualities that are either or and very black and white. An example is the way they use the duality of reason versus emotion. It is an old duality in western culture and often used as a weapon in the culture wars. Read more »

Temperatures in Adelaide hit 40.5 degrees yesterday, the 15th straight day they have soared above 35 degrees. It's a record and an indication of what climate change may well mean for southern Australia in the near future: hotter, drier, and less rain. Read more »

China's other face becomes apparent--the totalitarian face of repression exemplified in the crackdown on dissidence in Tibet. China is not just the booming economy requiring lots of resources from Australia. China's 57-year rule of Tibet has been marked by a heavy hand ever since China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to "liberate" the region and officially annexed it a year later. Read more »

We had a curious addition to the voting process for the Gold Coast council election this year. A few weeks ago we received letters from the Electoral Commission. Read more »