It's Melbourne Cup Day

While the country stands still for the running of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington, there will be a word or two spoken about great race horses of the past.

Phar Lap may have the premier place in Australia's affection for the horse, but in my family a love for another champion was also handed down.

So for my Poppa - here's the great Carbine in all his glory.

Carbine

US08: As the final countdown to the ballot tally begins

RT english language news from Russia

Who won?!!

Or how this household is beginning to feel as US election mania saturates the MSM and blogsphere.

Rees & Roozendaal cut costs at the wrong end

The Coffs Coast Advocate article yesterday:

COFFS Coast mother Maureen McDermot thought education was free in Australia, but news that the State Government is planning to axe free school travel for students makes her wonder just how free it really is.
Changes to the School Student Transport Scheme, which has subsidised student travel to and from school for more than 40 years, are expected to cost parents almost $400 a child each year....
Treasurer Eric Roozendaal said reform was essential due to NSW's financial situation.
"It will be a tough process but tough economic times require tough decisions," Mr Roozendaal said.
"The government rightly subsidises the cost of public transport, but we also have to be realistic about what we can afford."
The changes are expected to be unveiled in the State mini-budget by NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal on November 11.

I think that quite a few people on the NSW North Coast can empathise with Maureen.
With many students having to travel more than average distances to local schools and with no real railway travel alternative to the school bus or family car, the high cost of unsubsidised bus travel or heavy fuel costs may just see more than one child forced to miss school because there is no money left in the family purse that week for bus fares or petrol.

Premier Rees is being remarkably short-sighted in even thinking of applying his cost-cutting to rural or regional areas.
His understanding of non-metropolitan issues is sadly wanting - the Northern Rivers has some of the lowest family incomes in the state.

A rogue's gallery perspective on the Rudd-Conroy plan to censor Australian access to the Internet

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
Kevin Rudd, Stephen Conroy, Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf, the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton-Mifflin, 1943. pg 403)

"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
Adolph Hitler (from Proclamation to the German Nation in Berlin, February 1, 1933)

Picture of Kevin Rudd found at the ABC website

The Howard Years: why am I not surprised?

The Australian yesterday:

THREE of the biggest decisions of the Howard years - the GST, the intervention in East Timor and the Pacific solution - were decided with virtually no consultation with cabinet, it can be revealed for the first time.

A new television documentary, which is based on more than 20 hours of interviews with John Howard and 180 hours of interviews with key players in Australia and overseas, confirms how dominant the former prime minister was in running the affairs of the nation for almost 12 years.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer reveals how one of the most controversial policies of the Howard years - the so-called Pacific solution under which asylum-seekers from Australia were moved to neighbouring island nations - was devised.

Mr Howard had told him: "Go and find someone who will take them."

Mr Downer said: "So I went back up to my office and got my staff together there and said: 'Well, now we are literally going to have to think up a country to send these people, that'll take them.'

Let us hope that the Australian Broadcasting Commission really has solidly tackled its subject. Time is well overdue for Australian citizens to hear more of the details of what was done in their name (though it is a certainty that all the usual suspects kept very quiet when in front of the cameras about their parts in the AWB scandal, just in case any documentary viewer actually recalls details of previous 'evidence' presented to Commissioner Cole).

Given that Howard stacked the ABC board with neo-con sympathizers during his almost eleven years in office, I expect that a genuine exposé is out of the question and what we will be treated to is a watered down version of events and reams of self-serving footage of the former prime minister.

When is national security public information not public information?

When is public information not public information?
Why, when it's posted on the Attorney-General's website of course.
This site would make Sir Humphrey Appleby proud.
After declaring the National Security Public Information Guideline as being "not publicly available" it goes on to provide a helpful link to a pdf of this document.

"The Branch also has responsibility for reviewing and updating the National Counter-Terrorism Plan (www.nationalsecurity.gov.au), National Counter-Terrorism Handbook and oversees (with Public Affairs) the National Security Public Information Guidelines. The National Counter-Terrorism Handbook and National Security Public Information Guideline are not publicly available documents." (my bolding)

What is interesting in all this is just how determined the Prime Minister is to keep national security in his own bailiwick - four of the five committees dealing with national security and terrorism are chaired either by Kevin Rudd, the Secretary of the Dept. of Prime Minister and Cabinet or a senior official from that department.
It appears that our Kev just can't bear the thought of some other pollie taking credit for any work done on these matters.

National Security Public Information Guideline here.
National Counter-Terrorism Plan (with October 2008 amendments) here.

Just for fun here's a few updates on Australia's own terrorist watch list:
DFAT consolidated list of 540 individuals and terrorist groups here. Interestingly it notes that Osama Bin Laden is now an Afghan citizen and (although many convicted individuals are listed) the much maligned David Hicks is nowhere to be found.
ANS terrorist group list here.

Best short obits for the Bush Presidency seen so far

Bush poster from Chuckman's Cartoon Comments

Bush is pure poison, the most unpopular president in the history of opinion polling.
He will leave office on January 20 with a record of presiding over two recessions, and starting two wars that he could not finish. This amounts to a record of failure unmatched by any president.

Peter Hartcher writing in The Canberra Times on Saturday 1 November 2008

GEORGE BUSH is constitutionally barred from running for office next week, but you might be pleased to hear that his name will still appear on the ballot in at least one part of the United States. The people of San Francisco will be asked to approve an initiative to rename a city landmark. Proposition R proposes giving the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant a new title: the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Gerard Baker writing in The Times online 1 November 2008

"Bring them on."

George W. Bush recklessly responding to the beginnings of the Iraqi insurgency in the Orlando Sentinel 1 November 2003

"This nation has always gone to war reluctantly."

George Dubbya having a revisionist moment on CNN 11 November 2003