christopher pyne, useless twat or waste of good food and space? u decide

Marcos 2 comes to visit the king of the backflip, PM Halfpike. Here, within seconds, he reneges on the handshake and calls Marcos 2 a skanky whore who should leave the country immediately, unless she can name the date of Ned Kellys birthday and how many gay australians died at Gallipoli (answer none, or some, either way they wont tell).

"Mrs. Arroyo has become the symbol of everything that is wrong in Philippine governance," says Randolf S. David, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. "Many believe that the longer she remains in office, the more the crisis engulfs the whole system."

We have another corrupt dictator in town, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who after a very brief period of "reform" when first elected has reverted to type, rigging the last election (caught on tape), arresting and intimididating the oppostion, declaring martial law over a trumped up "coup" and using the "war on terror" as a justification for some extremely dubious crack downs on legitmate protests.

Will our PM raise any of these issues or will he be happy to get a few snapshot moments with Marcos 2. He's already agreed to increased military co-operation between our nations with nary a word about human rights in the fine print. In the Phillipines elected members of parliament are labeled communists and terrorists on Marcos 2's whim and the free press is but a distant memory, seems like the 1970's haven't left. Will the PM even dare to ask how many pairs of shoes are in the closet?

Earlier this year she briefly declared a state of emergency in response to allegations of a coup threat that others disputed. Since then she has been intensifying pressure on a wide range of political critics and especially on the press. Government officials have warned news outlets that they will be held to restrictive new guidelines, the justice secretary talks darkly about a journalistic watch list, and the staff members of a well- known center for investigative journalism have been threatened with sedition charges. No Philippine government has made such efforts to muzzle the press since the Marcos era

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For anyone who didnt instantly assume that the "Coalition of the Willing" were stuck in Iraq forever, here is the whitehouse take on the matter:

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

"The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you've had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability," Snow told reporters.

sort of contradicts our flailing "crazy"* PM's version of events where he declares that we will not stay one minute beyond the need to be there, but then again, our need to be there to babysit the civil war could well las the 50 odd years the US has been in Korea. As per usual, Mr Snow re-writes history just a bit, not only were we invited in to defend South Korea, we went in with the full and complete support of the UN and under its umbrella, and active hostilities didnt last as long as the present accomplished mission in Iraq.

* see michelle

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/flustered-howard-sounds-a-little-crazy/2007/05/29/1180205250476.html

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One item sums up the entire Bush Whitehouse, and its a wonderful piece of logic.

Bush has told the US department of Agriculture that it must keep tests on BSE (mad cow disease) to less than one per cent of slaughtered cattle, because testing more may lead to them finding BSE in the cattle. Meat producers and ranchers have lobbied hard to keep the expensive testing to an absolute minimum to reduce the risk (and cost) that they may have to say that the meat supply is less than what they guarantee is true. How GW is that. A victory for truth, justice and the american way.

As a sidelight and a wonderful further illumination of the Bushies bullshit, the Department of Homeland Security has released its record on "tracking down the terrorists", it turns out "in 2002, President Bush invoked the fight against "terror" or "terrorists" 19 times in a single speech. That's more mentions than there have been terrorism charges brought by the department in the last three years, according to an independent analysis of DHS records."

"The DHS claims it is focused on terrorism. Well that's just not true," TRAC spokesman David Burnham told CNN. "Either there's no terrorism, or they're terrible at catching them. Either way it's bad for all of us." The report found "national security" charges also made up a miniscule number of those brought by DHS. Only 114 -- or 0.014 percent -- of charges carried that designation.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Report_Less_than_.01__of_0528.html

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Favourite headline for the moment comes from the herald-sun:

Carl Williams Rejects Islam

noted religious scholar and australia's worst serial killer, carl williams from deep behind bars has said that he will not convert to islam. Is that a point in favour of islam or one against, should we consult him on climate change and IR laws. If we have that bastion of truth, the herald sun to rely upon, maybe he wil end up as foriegn minister in a Bolt Government.