Wall Street Journal McCain v Obama July poll

The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

WASHINGTON -- Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Sen. Barack Obama.
With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn't over any single issue being debated between the Democrats' Sen. Obama or the Republicans' Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama? It's still looking like a toss of the coin in the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign.

We are halfway through Echidna breeding season - drive carefully

Photo from the ABC

Echidna breeding season still has around six more weeks to run. Please take care when driving on rural roads or near bushland in your area. An amorous Echidna doesn't look both ways before crossing the road!

Grab your flack jacket - Australia's under attack!

When out surfing the Net last night I came across the Global Terrorism Database.
Opening the tab GD2 I received something of a shock. It seems that Australia has had 63 terrorist attacks up to 1997, many involving fatalities.

Does anyone remember an attack on 19 August 1996 which targeted government and saw 60 people injured?
Or four days earlier the indigenous community of Halls Creek conducting a terrorist attack on multiple fronts?
A terrorist assault on business on 28 February 1997 which saw 19 hurt?

Here are the website's details:
Copyright © 2007 National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism START: A Center of Excellence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA 301.405.6600

mailto:infostart@start.umd.edu?subject=GTD

http://www.start.umd.edu/

Last Updated: May 14, 2007

The methodology is here.

Call 000 if your laughter threatens to become terminal.

Updated GD2 webpage for Australia showing 9 more terrorist attacks between 1998 and 2003.

Prime Minister Rudd is being cute as he again approaches the subject of a republic

Oh dear, Kevin Rudd is at it again.
On the surface it seems that yesterday he had "agreed to start a consultation process about Aboriginal recognition in the Constitution."
Does anyone really think that Rudders and cronies would stop at limiting constitutional change to this recognition?
The daft idiot obviously thinks that under the cover of what is essentially a moral as well as a legal issue, the Labor Right can attach a republic.
Sorry, mate. In this house a republic is not on - I wouldn't trust any modern pollie with pen and ink around the Australian Constitution.
With Australia 2020 showing what an elitist idea you have of the consultative process, I specifically wouldn't trust you, Kev.

Obama presidential campaign encapsulated or why George Dubbya still counts

Found at Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index

Peter Martin points out an uncomfortable flaw in the national emissions trading scheme

Peter Martin in his blog yesterday pointed out a flaw in the proposed national emissions trading scheme which makes many uneasy.
This monumental elephant turned up in Australia's living room because the Rudd Government is like it's predecessor in many respects - it also appears to think that Australia is solely big business and industry.
When in fact the major polluters are frequently multinationals operating under multiple flags, to whom no-one owes a living least of all the Australian citizen, voter and taxpayer.

This column is about the coal-fired power industry, but it could have been about the asbestos industry, or the tobacco industry.

Never once on the countless occasions that Australian governments have restricted the sale of tobacco have they felt compelled to compensate the manufacturers for ''significant reductions in their profitability''.

Why would they? The cigarette manufacturers knew what was coming (and had decided to invest anyway) and were blessed with rusted-on customers.

But there was another more important reason why our governments didn't offer ''compensation'' to the industry they were trying to cripple.

To do it would have been to accept that the existing tobacco manufacturers had continuing ''rights'' that the government had to buy out in order to proceed.

It would have helped create a precedent that would have undermined the right of Australia's parliaments to act as they saw fit.

It would have undermined our sovereignty as voters...

The Government's independent climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, saw the danger clearly in his interim report delivered earlier this year.

As he put it, ''There is no tradition in Australia for compensating capital for losses associated with economic reforms.''

Is this a 'binge drinking' first?

You can tell The Daily Examiner has a former jock as its new editor.
During Grafton's July Racing Carnival the newspaper has Track Gossip on the front page.

The second trivia item was; "An 84-year-old woman in one of the hospitality tents was shocked by the waiter when she asked for a bottle of champagne.
'Sorry, Madam, I can't give you that, it's classed as binge drinking,' he told her.
The spritely pensioner told him that in all her life she had never been classed as a binge drinker and wouldn't cop it now.."

Apparently the waiter would allow her 2 glasses of champagne, which she took sans strawberries.

Stone the crows! At 84 years of age this woman lived through The Great Depression, the Second World War and every national upheaval thereafter.
She deserves to party at race time in her retirement years.

Bet that mongrel waiter went home and had a relaxing beer or three or four - with never a thought as to how his political correctness had humiliated one of his elders.