Beyond The Fringe

This film is a powerful exposes of the way vulnerable countries are ruthlessly farmed by empire and its mercantilist consorts, assisted by the World Bank and IMF, to the detriment of local people and environment.

Don’t just sit stunned after watching, get out there and challenge the corporations and countries who enslave people for venal gain. Spread the word, make this film viral!

Kevin Rudd is optimistic of the survival of western hegemony for at least another 15 years, as it shifts to a balance of powers rather than US unilateralism. This is reflected already in the expansion of the G7 to the G20, to include representation from most blocs, with under-representation from Africa and South East Asian regions, and no representation from the small island nations of the South Pacific, who are seriously threatened by the by-products of economic activity.

From Paul Kelly:

The basis of Rudd’s stance is a rejection of American decline and faith in American renewal. “By any rational measurement, US global power will remain unchallenged for the first quarter of the current century and arguably for much of the second,” he says. Rudd argues that US leadership “must nonetheless be deployed in a policy environment that is more interconnected, complex and contested than at any time since 1945″.

The new era, he says, is “no longer hot war, no longer cold war”. It is, on the contrary, a period of “an extraordinary complex peace”.

Confident in his reading of Obama, Rudd says the US will not return to unilateralism (a historic trait recently exemplified by Bush) or seek the “wholesale redesign of the global order” (attempted unsuccessfully by Woodrow Wilson) but will adopt a pragmatism that seeks to “renew the existing institutions of global governance from within”. He sees this as Obama’s project.

Rudd interprets Obama’s America as “acting as the pivotal power within the system rather than simply railing at the system from without”. Moving to his central proposition, Rudd argues that the US cannot lead alone but must be supported by a “new driving centre of global politics and global economics”. He means the G20, a group of developed and developing nations far more representative than the major-power Group of Eight. “This I believe is the current direction of the Obama administration,” Rudd says.

Understand what Rudd is really saying. For all his praise of US power, the G20 begins to recognise the relative decline of the US and the West. It is about a sharing of power to create better global outcomes. The group comprises France, Germany, Britain and Italy along with the European Union; from South America it has Brazil and Argentina; the Asian members are Japan, China, India, Indonesia and South Korea; the rest are Australia, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the US. It testifies to the reality of a more multipolar world. While arguing that the US will stay No.1, Rudd believes power is shifting from the West to East Asia and other power centres.

This penetrates to the essence of his vision: the need to reform global institutions and arrangements. Rudd is a dedicated multilateralist in the Labor tradition of H.V. Evatt, Gough Whitlam and Gareth Evans. He says the system created at San Francisco and Bretton Woods at the end of World War II has been static while the globe has been transformed. It is no longer functioning or legitimate. He warns that the global financial architecture has reached a tipping point.

Lindsay Tanner gives a well-crafted introduction to the new Government Digital Economy blog, which is to be open for a whole 18 days.

The Oz government is offering to receive online policy suggestions which contribute to their Future Directions paper to be released early next year.

Some of the themes to be explored include:

• What does the digital economy encompass?
• How do we maintain the same ‘civil society’ we enjoy offline in an online world? (this is the post that touches on the issue of filtering and we welcome your feedback about the issue in response to this post)
• Is there a benefit for the digital economy from open access to public sector information?
• Does Australia’s regulatory framework need tweaking to enable a vibrant digital economy in Australia
• How can the digital economy respond to environmental concerns?
• What should Australia do to ensure that our businesses and citizens have the necessary skills to participate fully in the digital economy?
• How can we measure the success of Australia’s digital economy?

Perhaps tellingly, the associated Conroy media release doesn’t include the bracketed explanation re web filtering.

As ever, the Fringe is cynical. Yet hopefully, this blog consultation initiative won’t serve merely as online placation to the overwhelming groundswell of valid dissension against and criticism of Conroy’s ill-considered web censorship plans. In other words, scream as loud as you like, people, we hear you – look, we published all your comments, but nanny knows best.

That the government apparently wishes to make online society like our ‘civil’ society indicates little has been learned on their part hitherto in this debate about the nature of the internet itself. The ever-present hunger for control is self-evident.

The new list of Filter Fallacies invoked by defenders of net censorship is an excellent starting point for people wishing to challenge the Conroy Doctrine.

For example,

The Conroy Fallacy: That if you are against the filter, you are for child pornography.

or

The Hamilton Fallacy: That censoring the Internet is just like censoring other media

UPDATE

Law enforcement agencies have been disempowered with the ‘Labor Government’s recent removal of $2.8m from the increased funding for OCSET (The Australian Federal Police’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team)’, the implausible implication being that web filters will be relied upon by government to take up the slack.

The Labor plan to censor the internet is in shreds with Telstra and Internode refusing participation in Conroy’s flawed closed prototype trials.

Senator Conroy’s office could not explain why it was telling people that the trials would not involve actual customers, which would give little indication of the real-world impact of the filtering plan.

Senator Conroy himself has consistently dodged questions about his policy in Parliament.

“How on earth could you conduct a ‘live’ trial if there are no customers to assess?” Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said.

“The minister also continues to be deliberately vague and cryptic about the definition of unwanted content and now he is unable to clarify how this so-called live trial will be conducted, even though he wants it to start before December 24.”

The Greens today called on the Government to abandon its internet filtering trial, saying it was flawed and doomed to failure.

…

Senator Ludlam said in a phone interview he believed Labor would drop the mandatory filtering policy in the new year once the now scaled-back trials were completed.

He said the Government could not abandon it now “without losing significant political face”.

APC critiques Conroy’s new blog

UPDATE Dec 10

Conroy has not revealed why the trials will not involve actual customers.

Mind maps of Conroy’s flawed net censorship policy and fallout if it’s implemented.

OCAU Internet filtering WIKI - a vast compendium of links on a timeline.

Conroy gets a blog bashing over his net censorwall.

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has raised concerns about the effectiveness of a new Federal Government digital economy blog in policy development.

If you have submitted a legitimate comment to the new DCBDE Blog and it hasn’t been published, go to Filtering Fallacies and voice your concern.

Three terrific articles on Spiked discussing the censorwall saga – Danu Poyner’s ‘Digital Natives’ take on censorious Kevin, with a history of the current netviral protest against Rudd’s paternalistic ambitions to nobble the big WWW, Kerry Miller’s Liberal tyranny on the World Wide Web which examines the extent to which Clive and the Hairshirts in tandem with the reactionary Catholic Labor Party right wing have hijacked the agenda, and Guy Rundle’s Tear down Australia’s Great Firewall Reef. Guy summons thoughts of Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, when he says “freedom of speech has to be defended against the equation of its use with the small amount of criminal behaviour conducted within it, and against the moralising notion that consensual adult images and activities should not be freely accessible lest they cause ‘harm’.”

It comes down to numbers now. Kevvie will lose face if he drops the silly policy, not just here but worldwide – perhaps most importantly in Asia, where they take things like that very seriously. At present he’s riding high in the polls. Should the issue reach the house, there’s no guarantee some of the moralistic wankers and technological retards in the Liberal Party may not cross the floor. Turnbull has been very very quiet on the issue, though of course, in politics, timing is everything.

Technologist Elias Bizanne shares his comprehensive analysis of the faulty assumptions implicit in the government compulsory ISP-based net filtering plans, highlighting the political gauntlet Rudd and his government are fecklessly running:

… to mandate restricted access to information on the Internet, based on expensive imperfect technology that can be routed around, is a Brave New World that will not be tolerated by the broader electorate once they realise their individual freedoms are being restricted

A poll conducted by the Courier Mail is currently showing 91% of a total 5735 respondents reject the net filter – a VERY significant indication that Rudd’s policy is way out of step with the thoughts of the net community.

According to the Internet Service Provider Content Filtering Pilot Technical Pilot Technical Testing Framework, the trials starting on 24th December will aim to

test a range of different types of filtering including:
• ACMA blacklist filtering only (for a blacklist of up to 10,000 URLs); or
• ACMA blacklist filtering plus the filtering of other content using different approaches
to filtering which would, for example, include:
- Index filtering of different sized blacklists;
- Dynamic analysis filtering;
- IP versus URL filtering;
- DNS poisoning.

The Australian public have still not been informed specifically what “other content” will be filtered in the trials by our secretive government. However, if IP filtering is employed, innocuous sites hosted on the same IPs as blacklisted sites may also be unavailable.

Interestingly, as an aside, one of the callers on the ABC National program Australia Talks, drew attention to “The Porn Report”, an Australian book debunking common assumptions about porn.

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An excellent discussion of the sociopolitical issues surrounding Conroy’s proposed impracticable, undemocratic censorship of the net with erudite Australian blogger, web guru and net broadcaster, Stilgherrian, is now available for download.

Meanwhile, @KevinRuddPM is on the social networking ball with the release of a Youtube presentation to Australian business following the G20 meeting.

Serendipitously, my dear perceptive Malaysian friend Roh has skewered and dissected the shock climate change fear oil bubble horror being shoved down our throats every five minutes by the media and pollies, a current mass-marketing phenomenon not unique to Australia. Whilst there has been no doubt in my mind for several decades that irresponsible littering, pollution, over-consumption and over-breeding – greed, selfishness and human arrogance – was leading inexorably toward a catastrophic collapse which would dwarf those of historic civilisations who similarly degraded that on which they depended, it is hardly helpful for people to be scared witless and even worse, numb, by constant pronouncements of doom.

To disempower people at a time when innovation and harnessing of joyful, intelligent solutions is most needed may be the last terrible resort of that crumbling, decadent plutocracy euphemistically referred to as the global economy.

Much of the oil bubble – 30% or so – is due to speculators – who naturally will be hopeful that the Iraq situation doesn’t sort itself out any time soon, with one third of the world’s sweet crude lying beneath cruel American boots. It wouldn’t do for the Saudis either if the world’s favourite fungible was suddenly agush once more. Neither would it be a good thing for CO2 levels, which are what we should really be worrying about. The sun, which is mostly responsible for climate cycles, is in a cooling phase, reaching its next Maunder minimum in about 2032. Should we have failed to act substantially to limit CO2 emissions by then, as the sun heats once more, we may not only be bewailing the extinction of the Great Barrier Reef, but the human species as well. The only reprieve on the cards, according to many ecologists, is a good old plague which may decimate our rapacious species in the nick of time for the silent ones – all other earth species. Bird flu was just an aperitif.

Regardless of the bi-partisan doomsayers’ newly discovered woe, we look happily at our cashed up CXY (Cougar Energy) shares and hope their first 400mw plant out at Kingaroy is running before schedule. Queensland is the repository of the dirtiest brown coal in the world. A few years ago, Queensland ex-Premier, Peter Beattie boasted horribly and unforgettably that there was no problem with the state’s coal supplies – there was enough for the next 300 years! What a great turnaround if UCG tech works as it should. Yes, local consumers may have to pay 3 times as much as they do now for gas to maintain parity with all those lovely export dollars, yet it will still be cheaper than fuelling their disgraceful 4wds with petrol.

Meanwhile, another coal behemoth is commissioned in the Latrobe Valley, folks talk about the end of the Murray Darling system and our government is STILL encouraging population growth, including Captain Bligh, who is attempting to force another 75,000 yokels into the Sunshine Coast pronto, carping at bewildered developers to carve up their landbanks now. Of course, young Queenslanders won’t be able to afford these houses, they will be for wealthy old southerners who can migrate north for their golden years when they most need expensive state health services etc. And after they cark it, their money will gurgle back down south again. Bligh claims she ‘loves Noosa’ … so perhaps we shall remain a tiny green suburb in the Queensland of the future, between wall to wall, street to street concrete from Coolongatta to Hervey Bay. When will these loons learn that small is just as beautiful as it has always been and create prosperous economic policies which nurture real sustainability of the environment rather than what historically has proved disastrous – pandering predominantly to people’s predilections to gobble and reproduce whilst proliferating architectural monstrosities?

Andrew McNamara, Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, gave an impressive, lucid speech to the Brisbane Institute on the need for sustainable planning within Australia.

McNamara quoted the wise words of Bob Carr in 1997:

“I think people are ready to grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet and that Australia must begin to think of itself as a country with a population problem. Let’s throw away for all time the notion that Australia is an empty space just waiting to be filled up. Our rivers, our soils, our vegetation won’t allow that to happen without an enormous cost to those who come after us.”

Showing he missed Carr’s central point, McNamara went on to say:

The key to achieving a sustainable Australian population in the 21st century is population distribution – adopting policies which encourage and support population growth in areas where it can be supported sustainably, and discouraging it in those places where it can’t.

We hope the Federal Government notes well the plight of our region, with plans by the old Maroochy Shire Council to increase its population by 63% by the year 2020, and acts to prevent such lunacy. Stopping the ill-conceived and environmentally devastating Traveston Dam would be a significant indication of the Government’s good intentions also. Population growth in the already environmentally stressed-to-the limit south east corner of Queensland must be discouraged.

An economic strategy based on reducing population generally across Australia and encouraging same must be prepared – ’smarter and smaller’ needs to become our catchcry. Increased education and parity of wages for women, removal of baby bonuses, encouraging older people back into the workforce, adequate funds for academic research untied to needs of existing industry in order to create new industries down the track, support for innovative brain-based, non-polluting industries, and more apprenticeships would all help.

The Federal Government might also examine the success of the Noosa strategic plan with its population cap and international recognition by UNESCO with a view to using it as a model for communities across Australia.

Is the nadir yet to come in our feverish bourse? The AllOrds has caught a severe case of pneumonia from the ailing US economy – yet we think a large part of this malaise may be due to perception rather than reality, apart from our banks who stupidly spread their assets into US home loan Ponzi schemes.

The demands on our minerals and other resources by China and India may keep us from too much pain as the Dow Jones slides into a coma, and perhaps our perceptions haven’t caught up yet with reality. Meanwhile the swarming sharks gobble our treasure at bargain basement prices. We hope Australians see the opportunities also, otherwise the farm will end up just about totally overseas owned at the rate it’s going.

Of interest, we see that alternative energy stocks are doing quite well despite the plunge – CXY and COZ may well do superbly with the inevitable recovery. Novera on the AIM market has just had a takeover offer for twice what we paid for it – this company reclaims methane from landfills in Europe. BPO has slid just 1 cent since our last purchase and the future looks rosy with proposed production of organic termicide Termilone to begin in 2010.

As we are counter-cyclical by nature, we reckon 2009 is the time to buy, buy, buy – wisely, with a view to the sort of world which may emerge after the current depression subsides.

Countless times during our long and profitable investment career, our political judgment has been invaluable in helping us make accurate market predictions, enabling us to pick trends well before they are common knowledge and every man and his dog is on the gravy train. A current example is the certainty we had that the ALP conference would lift the no new mines ban yet not back nuclear power stations. We lined up our U investments accordingly, choosing only shares with interests in South Australia, the Northern Territory and overseas. Our knowledge of the loosening of political control in China and subsequent market relaxation encouraged us to lash out with our investment in OCO, now paying off. Likewise with that goldie of goldies, LRL and the enticing LYC.

Without a political perspective refined and polished in debate with others, one flies in a fog.

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Latest figures on foreign investment in Whorestralia are worrisome.

In 2003/04, foreign investment totalled $1,059,345m – and 30.8% of Whorestralia’s total enterprise equity was owned by foreigners, with the United Stupids heading the list at 32% of total foreign ownership, followed closely by the United Kooks at 30%. By the end of the December 2006 quarter, foreign investment increased to $1,433,466m.

That’s an gigantic 35.3% increase in foreign investment in just 3 years. Why did the rodent add more sugar by removing CGT for foreign equities investors last December?

Nett Whorestralian foreign debt has risen from $390,565m in 03/04 to a disturbing $521,161m at the end of Dec 06. The vast majority of foreign debt is implicated in the private sector, with a disgraceful increase from $385,490m in 03/04 to $518,841m in Dec 06.

Whorestralia’s total liabilities at the end of 2006 were a staggering $900,258m.

So what use has the concurrent resource boom during the past 3 years been to Whorestralia? It is clear that much of the profits therefrom have been expropriated overseas, leaving the Whorestralian economy beholden.

Team Rodent has patently been very busy selling us out.

With the passing of the Ides of March, we have strong suspicions that the second market correction may be over – will there be a third? It is possible the subdued buying of resources – first copper, then zinc – by the Chinese in the past little while was deliberately orchestrated to engineer prices down to coincide with the beginning of the Year of the Gold Pig. Of relevance here may be the decision by the Whorestralian government last December to remove capital gains taxes for foreign investors and the more recent Chinese government decision not to impose capital gains tax on their investors. Metals prices rose strongly last night. Will the bull market resume or will the crazy crazy selloff of our precious resources continue unabated?

Who wouldn’t like to have been a cashed up Chinese investor this year, rolling in US dollars, eager to drop them into cheap physical resources as the United Stupids economy sags under the weight of precarious hedge and subprime mortage funds and a tenuous bond market?

And where better to invest than in relatively insulated CGT free rich Australian resources at bargain basement prices – particularly uranium (Citic has been buying up more SAU this week), gold and zinc.

Kiss goodbye to your birthright treasures, fellow Whorestralians – and don’t expect to reap any of the proceeds of the fire sale in additional community services in this election year – Howard’s mudslingers need every cent to artificially deflate the trade deficit, to buy more crappy US jet fighters and electioneering pork. And as for you pathetic, whinging Whorestralian mortgagees, get ready to wear another interest rate rise you have to have, trust me, it’s for your own good,.

Coalition apologists are oft want to lambast Labor for over-spending. Yet why the Coalition runs a surplus with our tax money is questionable, when it would be better off either spent on bettering services and infrastructure or returned to us.

Lindsay Tanner is demonstrating already that Labor is committed to reducing wasteful expenditures and trimming sleazy Howard pork. Of particular note are much needed funding slashes to the virulent, profligate government propaganda machine, tax deductability of cronies’ political donations and curtailment of organisational perks.

LINDSAY TANNER MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE

LABOR’S $3 BILLION SAVINGS PLAN

Federal Labor today announced a massive savings plan to cut out $3 billion of Howard Government waste.

These $3 billion in savings across the 4 years of the federal budget will put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

Labor’s savings plan includes:

· Saving $394 million by scrapping the Howard Government’s extreme work laws;

· Cutting $350 million worth of Howard Government political advertising; and

· A $395 million cut in the use of consultants in the Commonwealth public service.

A Rudd Labor Government will use its $3 billion savings plan to cut wasteful spending and increase investment in productivity drivers like education, skills and infrastructure.

Complacency and lack of discipline by the Howard Government has allowed unnecessary spending to flourish. Splurges of taxpayers dollars on political advertising and high cost consultants are proof of that fact.

If introduced today, Labor’s savings would save $3 billion over the Budget estimates period. Labor will continue to pursue savings options, and make further savings announcements prior to the election.

This sensible and disciplined savings plan will put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. Labor’s savings include and build on the $1 billion of savings announced in November 2006

2 March 2007

SUMMARY OF LABOR’S SAVINGS

Figures in $million 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 Total
Limit FTB (B) to those who earn under $250,000 7.5 7.5 7.5 22.5
Withdraw Australia’s contribution to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 88.0 88.0
Remove tax deductibility for political donations 9.5 11.6 21.1
Remove surplus funding due to WorkChoices 53.5 138.2 141.7 61.4 394.8
Fold Invest Australia functions into Austrade 23.5 23.5 23.5 70.5
Reverse 2006 Budget measure for on-line electronic authentication 4.0 12.6 9.1 25.7
Abandon Medibank Private sale and associated sale costs 12.0 12.0
Reverse increase in MP’s printing allowance 2.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 17.0
Require industry to fund the Financial Literacy Foundation 5.3 5.4 10.7
Streamline government advertising and eliminate political propaganda 50.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 350.0
Abolish Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership 2.0 4.3 6.3
Use centralised telephone services and websites to advise on aged care availability and save uncommitted Carelink funds 13.7 13.7
Require industry not taxpayers to fund the Do Not Call Register 4.0 10.1 7.6 6.2 27.9
Partially reverse 2006-07 Budget decision giving extra running costs to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 4.5 8.5 8.9 9.4 31.3
Reverse 2006-07 budget decisions to increase Australian Securities and Investment Commission funding 19.3 36.7 36.8 37.0 129.8
Defer Access Card for further examination 145.0 157.0 302.0
Abolish Carrick Institute awards and reduce Institute funding 5.4 10.7 10.7 10.7 37.5
Absorb the cost of the Future Fund advisory unit 0.4 0.7 0.7 0.7 2.5
Reduce spending on non-Defence related recruitment agencies 7.0 15.8 15.8 15.8 54.4
Reduce spending on consultants 56.5 112.9 112.9 112.9 395.2
Reduce spending on political opinion polls/market research 7.5 15.0 15.0 15.0 52.5
Reverse December 2006 decision to create Digital Australia and increase ACMA funding 2.9 7.0 5.9 6.2 22.0
Remove funding to employers to promote WorkChoices under the Employer Advisor Program 12.5 12.5
Remove December 2006 funding increase for the PM’s Nuclear Energy Taskforce 3.9 3.9
Improve purchasing and administration arrangements of Commonwealth air travel 6.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 52.5
Reduce funding for the National Capital Authority 1.0 3.5 3.5 3.5 11.5
Reduce duplication in tax administration by abolishing the Inspector-General of Taxation 2.2 2.2 2.2 6.6
Extend Centrelink compliance campaign – ‘Keeping the system fair’ 51.8 53.4 55.0 160.2
Redirect 2006-07 budget measure to increase Australian Taxation Office funding to compliance activity to produce larger compliance dividend 7.0 62.1 175.7 235.7 480.5
Re-introduce the voluntary Student Supplement Scheme saving money in youth allowance and AUSTUDY 34.7 31.3 28.1 94.1
Reverse December 2006 decision for National Training Centre for Aerial Skiing 2.5 2.5
Close Nauru and Manus Island detention centres 10.0 27.0 27.0 27.0 91.0
Total # 275.4 943.1 994.8 789.4 3001.2
# Labor’s November savings announcement included $125 million arising from the proposed withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. Following questioning in estimates, no clarity was given of the Government’s actual funding in the forward estimates. Although the Government has no exit strategy from Iraq, it has not provided forward estimates of the cost of troop deployment beyond 30 June 2007. Labor will withdraw Australian combat troops from Iraq, but it is difficult to estimate the savings from the withdrawal of troops because of the lack of transparency relating to these costs in the forward estimates, as well as the fact that the precise timing of the withdrawal will be subject to the stage that the combat troop rotation has reached and negotiations with the United States and Iraqi Governments on a staged withdrawal. Therefore the savings from the withdrawal of combat troops cannot be included in this savings package.

My goodness, what will the aerial skiers say?

Adulators of our prime monster often pontificate about the proud, supposedly unequalled record of the object of their worship in keeping interest rates under control. Yet as it can easily be demonstrated, they are indulging in pompous magical thinking.

For example, from this 2006 7.30 Report:

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In the same interview Ian Macfarlane tested that bold claim about record high interest rates, whose rates were higher John Howard in 1982 as Treasurer or Paul Keating in 1989?

IAN MACFARLANE, FORMER RESERVE BANK GOVERNOR: The bill rate was higher in ‘82 and it was higher I have to say in ‘85 than ‘89.

MAXINE McKEW: Perceptions are interesting, aren’t they?

Kim Beasley said last November of Johnny’s more recent deceptive record:

John Howard promised in the 2004 election to “keep interest rates at record lows”, but they have risen three times since then, and seven consecutive times in all. He has betrayed the families who put him in office, and is completely out of touch with the pain his rate rises inflict on Middle Australia. Mr Howard is so out of touch, he urged the Reserve Bank to raise rates and told us it is the interest rate rise we have to have.

Globally, despite the Prime Monster touting a supposedly healthy, booming economy, Whorestralia has very high interest rates:

According to the OECD, only Turkey, Iceland, Mexico and New Zealand have higher interest rates than Australia.

Depending on the April 24 CPI figures, it is on the cards that there will be at least one more interest rate rise this year. Little Johnny will be praying he won’t have to explain away prior to this year’s crucial federal election the fifth interest rates hike since he promised at the last election to keep interest rates low.

On the macro front, as the United Stupids position their fleet to aggress Iran, Ahmadinejad predicts the downfall of Israhell. Israhell has previously threatened Iran of course, though they have now issued a decree that they have no intention of attacking Iran – has Bush decided to do the dirty work on Iran and told the Israhellis to back off or is a US attack on Iran off the agenda for the time being?

Russia is sounding supportive of Iran – they don’t want their trade and investments disrupted. Russia holds the key to the EU energy supply. Iran continues to make negotiation noises about its nuclear enrichment program – treading a very clever fine line. From what’s coming out of the Israhelli media, one can tell easily how much Netanyahu and his neozionists really want to whack Iran. The thing is, Iran haven’t invaded anyone for a couple of hundred years – unlike the Israhellis who are constantly whacking their neighbours. And the apartheid land thief zealots continue and will continue to reap what they sow until they compensate those they have dispossessed, whose fury foments with the ongoing crimes perpetrated upon them by the unrestrained Israhellis. Given the comparative lack of support amongst Democrat voters for Israhell, the Zionista will be pulling out all stops to keep the Bushista in power.

Bush continues to mouth ‘we are staying the course’ in Iraq as the civil war there rages. He denies the findings of John Hopkins Uni (a very conservative establishment) on the astronomical number of Iraqi civilian deaths resultant from the illegal invasion by the Coalition of the Killing.

Would an attack of Iran take the heat off Bush’s Iraq failure, or will an artificially high DOW and vacuous noises from Bernanke keep the US consumers placated sufficiently for a Bush success in the Congressionals? or will unaccountable Diebold do the job if all else fails?

Will the US neocons aka the PPT in collusion with the Bush buddies, the Saudis, further depress the POO prior to the elections to keep inflating the DOW and deflating the POG? The Bundesbank reveals they were cajoled recently by the Central Banks to flog gold but they resisted. Good on them.