The Everything-New-Is-Old-Again Labour Party wasn't expected to win the Henley by-election. It was, after all, an extremely toffy-nosed Tory seat, made vacant when Boris Karloff became Lord Mayor of London. But how many people expected Labour to (a) come fifth, behind even the Greens and BNP, and (b) score less than five per cent of the primary vote, thereby losing its deposit, so to speak?

At least Richard McKenzie (Labour, 1066 votes) outpolled such lumninaries as Bananaman Owen (Monster Raving Loony Party, 242 votes) and Harry Bear (Fur Play Party, 73 votes).

One of the most shameful episodes in Australia's history has come to an end, with the commencement of the withdrawal of our combat troops from Iraq.

The withdrawal came more or less with a whimper, and certainly not telegraphed in advance. Earlier this year the Senate Estimates Committee was told that Australia's role in Iraq was complete, and this was confirmed by Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston yesterday (video). We, of course, should never have been there, an aggressor nation (along with the USA, UK and numerous smaller members of the "Coalition of the Willing") invading a sovereign entity on the other side of the world, on the basis of fabricated "intelligence". The acronym for the original (subsequently discarded) US name for the invasion, "Operation Iraqi Liberation", sums up the underhanded motives fairly well.

My third change of address in three years out of the way, it seems to becoming a seasonal thing. Ah well, back in business, and wireless broadband to boot.

From the land that gave you the Second Amendment, comes this special offer from a car dealership in Butler, Missouri. Buy a new car from Max Motors and get a free handgun.

"I’m telling them to get the semiautomatic because it holds more rounds," the dealership's general manager, Walter Moore, told the Kansas City Star. He's not talking about the car.

Video from MSNBC.

I make no comment, I give no endorsement, I just link to Russia Today's report.

Working families binge drinking their baby bonus away for lack of affordable housing? Not in Schwarzenegger's California, where they have another solution for mortgage stress. CNBC takes up the story.

Counting down the three outstanding political quotes of the past week:

Number Three:

"...there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population."

- George Walker Bush, assigning blame for the global food shortage, 1.5.08

Number Two:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

- Laurence Binyon, from For The Fallen, first published in The Times, 21.9.1914

To the memory of the soldiers who fell at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915.
To the memory of Australian soldiers who served in the Great War, and in all other wars.
To the memory of all victims of war and conflict worldwide, civilian and military.
To the memory of my grandfather, Private Cooper Eyre.
To the memory of my father, Gunner Fred Eyre.
To the memory of my uncle, Private Percy Walter Ellis Eyre, who died at El Alamein, 23 October 1942.

Australia has been a leading exporter of rice, supposedly feeding up to 40 million people worldwide. But decades of mismanagement of water allocations in the Murray-Darling river basin, exacerbated by the recent drought, has hit rice crops hard, despite the fact that Australian farmers have taken huge leaps in improving water efficiency in rice production.

But there's another problem. They can grow grapes on their land, using less water and making money from the booming wine industry. Yes, the hungry of the world risk playing second fiddle to middle-class Aussie tipplers.

Al Jazeera English visited the Riverina district of New South Wales for this report, which aired on April 23:

This is the start of a public beta test vlog that I am trialling, utilising worldwide news sources that make available embeddable video reports on environmental/business themes. With Green Day having taken place on Tuesday, this seems as good a time as any to start.

To kick it off, a report from Reuters dated April 18. I know that the hoi polloi with their harbourside mansions in Sydney hate mangroves because they spoil those investment-hungry "harbour views", and that they attract the mozzies, but mangroves serve an extremely valuable role in the ecosystem, especially as protection against erosion. And it's believed that many thousands of lives could have been spared in the 2004 tsunami if mangroves hadn't been removed on the coasts of India, Sri Lanka and Sumatra.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reports that up to a third of the world's mangroves have disappeared. In the Republic of Congo Reuters Television meets a man who has taken up the challenge of saving his country's mangroves.