Our pathetic excuse for a Prime Minister - Mister Can't Do himself, John Winston Howard - can't apologise on behalf of an inept immigration department, can't sign the Kyoto Protocol even though it becomes international law today, can't cancel the foreign debt of tsunami-stricken countries, can't let the buck stop with him. He can't sack incompetent ministers either... though that may be because he'd have nobody left.

And he can't give an answer to Federal Parliament when his assurances that no Australian has been involved in torture in Iraq are placed into question. I'll leave it to Margo Kingston of the Sydney Morning Herald to pick up the story.