From Annabel Crabb/the drum...

Let's get something straight; politicians of both sexes get ribbed about their looks.

Most of them are martyrs to the cartoonists, who never waste the opportunity provided by a pointy nose or big ears, whatever the gender of the affected person.

from Crikey .....

Herald Sun caught trying to entrap Victorian MPs

Crikey senior journalist Andrew Crook writes:

In almost every recent Victorian election, we have seen the Labor dirt unit roll out several old chestnuts about the Greens' ''extreme'' policies. And boy, do they love to tell voters that the Greens-backed position on medically supervised injecting rooms is an extreme policy.

What Labor doesn't tell say is the policy was once its own. It went to the 1999 election promising to set up a heroin injecting facility. The idea was shelved once the Bracks government came to power.

Like the morning after a big party, government can be quite sobering.

The Government's lynchpin election promise of a National Broadband Network (NBN) has inched closer to fruition today, after a deal was struck with independent Senator Nick Xenophon.

Senator Xenophon had been refusing to back NBN legislation which would enable the separation of Telstra's wholesale and retail arms.

He wanted the NBN business case released before promising his vote in the Upper House on the bill to separate Telstra.

The Government has now confirmed it has agreed to release a summary of the business plan ahead of a vote in the Senate.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI clearly acknowledged on Tuesday that the need to prevent diseases like AIDS could outweigh the church’s long opposition to the use of condoms.

Wayne Swan: Well, I can't speculate about Senator Xenophon. There's an important debate going on. The debate at the moment, Fran, is actually about structural separation. Which is absolutely fundamental to microeconomic reform in this country, in getting not only super fast broadband, but a much more efficient and prosperous economy into the future. I know Senator Xenophon shares that objective.

In any other country, the current American bribe to Israel, and the latter's reluctance to accept it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else's property would be regarded as preposterous.

Three billion dollars' worth of fighter bombers in return for a temporary freeze in West Bank colonisation for a mere 90 days? Not including East Jerusalem - so goodbye to the last chance of the east of the holy city for a Palestinian capital - and, if Benjamin Netanyahu so wishes, a rip-roaring continuation of settlement on Arab land.

When Prime Minister Julia Gillard met President Barack Obama for the first time last week, Gillard reminded the world that the US and Australia were "great mates" and Obama in turn affirmed: "The United States does not have a closer or better ally than Australia."

from Crikey .....

Elite Oz soldiers in covert operations for top-secret Alliance Base

Antony Loewenstein writes:

THE Families Minister, Jenny Macklin, has accused the opposition of trying to wreck a historic social change for women - paid parental leave - at the 11th hour, by seeking changes in the last week of Parliament, just six weeks out from its start date.

A private member's bill from the opposition's spokesman on small business, Bruce Billson, will seek to have Centrelink permanently administer payment of the government benefit, not employers.

Ms Macklin said 2000 women due to give birth in January had already applied for the scheme, and 500 employers had signed up, so a smooth start was vital.

Mr Turnbull hit back in advance yesterday, saying his critical approach to the network ''shows how uninfluenced I am by my personal holdings''.

Also yesterday, the Greens revealed they had secured a deal from the government to stop the automatic privatisation of the network five years after its completion.

Under the original plan, the network, once rolled out in eight years, was to have been privatised after five years.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/turnbull-holds-10m-network-conflict-20101121-182mp.html

Leaders of Nato's 28 states have backed a strategy to transfer leadership for the fight against the Taliban to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai was in Lisbon, where he signed a long-term security partnership with Nato.

Nato's secretary general said the Taliban would not be allowed simply to wait for foreign forces to leave, saying Nato would remain committed.

Nato would stay "as long as it takes", Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

However, news agencies quoted US officials at the summit as saying that Washington had not yet taken a decision on ending combat by the end of 2014.

Tony Abbott has been in public life for a long time. Most recently there has been his meteoric rise to leadership of the Liberal party and to a hair's breadth from the prime ministership itself. Charming and disarming as he can be, there is something deeply disturbing in the way he carries out his public role.

It has not always been pretty, but it has always been entertaining - usually comic and at times tragic. During the whole episode of the supposed 'love child' with his university girl friend, he managed to maintain a quiet dignity, particularly in the face of the final revelation that the child he thought he had fathered was not actually his. 

Ten years of rule by the Bush and Obama regimes have seen the collapse of the rule of law in the United States. Is the American media covering this ominous and extraordinary story? No the American media is preoccupied with the rule of law in Burma (Myanmar).

The military regime that rules Burma just released from house arrest the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The American media used the occasion of her release to get on Burma's case for the absence of the rule of law. I'm all for the brave lady, but if truth be known, "freedom and democracy" America needs her far worse than does Burma.