In the wake of the Palmer & Comrie Reports, dealing with DIMIA’s appalling treatment of Vivian Alvarez, there have been loud & repeated calls for the Minister, Amanda Vanstone, to resign.

Prime Minister, John Howard, has refused to back these calls & has defended Vanstone, arguing that no Minister can be expected to resign every time something goes wrong in their department. 

Whilst many Australians, including myself, oppose the government’s draconian mandatory detention policies for refugees, I think we need to recognize that formulating government policy & the effective administration of government departments are very different issues. 

‘Had the church not abdicated its moral responsibility of enacting the philosophy of Christ, the history of America would be very different & our place in the world would also be changed. If the church believed in & taught the factual doctrines of Christ it would be a very radical institution, a far cry from the bastion of conservatism that we see today.

It would actively organize against war. It would fill the streets with passionate people who demonstrate against the evils of war. It would take a strong stand against overt aggression, materialism, obscene wealth, imperialism, corporate crime, colonialism & the unequal distribution of wealth. It would minister its massive resources to end poverty. It would denounce presidents who espouse Christian values; but who act like the anti-Christ.

There are growing fears that the federal government is preparing to relax Australia’s beef import regulations, overturning its ban on beef imports from BSE affected countries like the US & Canada. 

The federal government has confirmed that cabinet is currently considering relaxing Australia’s import regulations, to bring them into line with international rules promulgated by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), an arm of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

‘Gosh, we haven't heard much from God lately, have we?  

I'm wondering why that is.  

His mouthpieces in America - who always seem so sure of themselves, so sure that they alone hear God speaking & so willing to share His wisdom with the rest of us - have gone strangely quiet of late.

‘Absurdities & atrocities have come to largely define America in the new millennium. 

Who would have thought that the United States of America would embrace the practice of torture as a matter of policy?  

Torture, with all its grim, sadistic, soul-destroying, screaming implications.  

The President endorses torture. The Attorney General made it possible.  

BALI, INDONESIA – ‘Hospital officials say three Australians were among the 25 people killed after terrorist bombs packed with ballbearings tore through three packed Bali tourist restaurants in Jimbaran and Kuta. Five Australians remain missing and 19 were among more than 100 injured’ Bali Outrage 

‘Quietly, firmly, relentlessly, the good captain laid out the list of atrocities committed at the order of the enemies of freedom: "Death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment." A catalogue of depravity, all of it designed - with diabolical sophistry - by self-exalted men cloaking their violent perversions with sham piety and righteous sputum. This was terrorism on a grand scale, chewing up the innocent and guilty alike.

The US Defence Science Board, an advisory board to the Pentagon, published a study last December claiming that Muslims in the Middle East do not yearn for freedom.

But it seems clear that few in the Bush administration have read it or, if they have, then it is being ignored for not being ‘on message’.

The Board’s report asserts that Muslims in dictatorial regimes do not seek freedom as those in countries that had been dominated by the Soviet Union after World War II. The board said that unlike those who lived in East Bloc states, Muslims do not see the United States as their liberator.

“Giving all honour, thanks & praises to God for courage & wisdom, this is a very important rally. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, feelings & concerns regarding a tremendous problem that we are currently facing. This problem is universal: transcending race, economic background, religion & culture, & this problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House. 

In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip.

President Bush unveiled an aggressive initiative Monday that would make the U.S. free of petroleum dependence by the year 4920, less than three millennia from now.

"Our mission is clear," Bush said in a speech delivered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "We must free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels within 85 generations. A cleaner, safer America is my vision. And it is our great, great-great-times-80 grandchildren who will realize that vision."

‘What is right for us is right for others: if it is right for our Western governments to reserve the right to attack a sovereign nation for either perceived crimes committed or possible future crimes, then it is right for the enemy to do the same.

In this case, Iran would be well within their rights to attack the US, pre-emptively, now. The patent aggression being openly directed towards Iran, mirroring the aggression shown toward pre-invasion Iraq, under our elementary moral truism becomes a valid policy avenue for Iran itself. Inversely, if we declare that it is right for us to have security, not be under external threat, to guarantee the prosperity of our citizens, then it is also a right for the government of Iran. Ideological differences apart, dedication to our notion of liberal democracy apart, it should not be on the personal judgement calls of our leaders, or on the desires of our business communities that a regime is deemed different to us & therefore subject to different courses of action, but on our commitment to a moral integrity, based on our elementary moral truism.

‘At last history hits pay dirt. For years it was pap for television.

The nation's rulers needed scientists for guns, linguists for trade and economists for mistakes. History was for nuts and numismatists.

Now up pops Charles Clarke jingling bags of gold. The home secretary has promised the prime minister that he will lock away for five years anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" a terrorist act committed in the past 20 years. He does not care if glorification was not meant. If someone, somewhere takes anything that I say or write as encouraging to terror, even if they do not act on it, I have committed a criminal act.

‘Government officials & American media officials have repeatedly denounced the al-Jazeera network for airing grisly footage of Iraqi war casualties & American prisoners of war.

The legal fight over whether to release the remaining photographs of atrocities at Abu Ghraib has dragged on for months, with no less a figure than Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers arguing that the release of such images will inflame the Muslim world & drive untold numbers to join al-Qaeda. But none of these can compare to the prospect of American troops casually bartering pictures of suffering & death for porn.

Referring to the activities of the “coalition of the willing

In the wake of the July terrorist attacks in London, a group of Church of England bishops today issued a report criticising American foreign policy, the US war on terror & the misuse of biblical texts by some Christian groups to shape American thinking & to support the Bush administration’s political agenda in the Middle East.

The report accuses the US of using illegitimate & dangerous rhetoric, describing some millennialist views as “deeply worrying & illegitimate