It still hurts. Seventeen days later, and the re-election of John Winston Howard for a fourth term of government is still unbelievable. Despite his government's appalling track record on humanitarian issues, on foreign policy, on trade relations and industrial development, despite its under-publicised shortcomings in economic management, the Liberals and Nationals are back with an increased majority. Worse still, they will hold at least half of the senate seats from 1 July 2005, and might just (for we still do not know for sure) gain an absolute majority.
Whew. We must have just been through the best championship series week in years, maybe all time. Do I feel sorry for Yankees supporters? Nah. Fantastic comeback by the Red Sox.
Nonetheless I will be going for the Cards. Game one starts at Fenway Park in about an hour. Could this all be a big letdown?
My pick for the series: St Louis 4 Boston 1.
The Green Party of the United States, who will be represented by David Cobb in the presidential election, issued a list last Thursday of issues that George W Bush and John F Kerry failed to discuss at their three Mass Debates. I reproduce their press release in full:
GREENS LIST THE TOP 12 ISSUES CENSORED FROM THE BUSH-KERRY DEBATES
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders and candidates charged that the presidential debates, limited to the candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry, have effectively censored numerous issues important to Americans.
Over the last few weeks I have been automatically posting new entries from a few other newsfeeds and blogs to these pages. I've done this by utilising Jabber and RSS technology via some Wordpress utilities.
After trialling it here, I've decided to discontinue the feed as I think it was starting to detract from the main role of this blog, ie, to put my opinions forward, and not everyone elses :-) You'll still see most of these feeds on the various pages of this site, especially the "news" pages in the "now/more" section - see the new menu in the left column.
October 15, 6:07 pm.
http://www.empirenotes.org/#15oct041
October 15, 6:07 pm. Apparently, an Army Reserve platoon, part of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, South Carolina, is under arrest for refusing to obey orders to go on what they considered a suicide mission. Stationed at Tallil Air Base south of Nasiriyah, they were ordered to do a fuel resupply run up to Taji, north of Baghdad. Fuel convoys in the "Sunni Triangle" nearly always co ...
Iran: Journalist Detained in Internet Crackdown
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/10/14/iran9506.htm
The arrest of journalist and internet writer Omid Memarian continues a disturbing crackdown on journalists and internet writers in Iran, Human Rights Watch said today. Memarian, a well-known figure in Iran?s nongovernmental organization community, has been detained without charge since his arrest on Sunday, Oct. 10.
Greenpeace film wins environmental "Oscar®"
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=615987
The Panda Awards are the wildlife and environmental equivalent of the Oscars®, and in 2002 nearly 400 films from 35 different countries competed for these prestigious awards. This year, Greenpeace UK has won the Panda Award for best film in the Campaign category with a film narrated by Sir David Attenborough and Scottish screen star Ewan McGregor.
