WorkChoice: Howard's monster unleashed

$55 million later - that is, after the Federal Government's profligate waste on advertising the benefits of the new IR laws - it seems all is not all that well with this allegedly great advancement for the workers of Australia.

As Peter Hartcher, political editor of the SMH, writes this morning:

"This week the Prime Minister, John Howard, entered the third phase of his handling of his new workplace laws. It was the week Howard stopped pretending that it was all going to be all right and admitted to his party that the public was "uneasy" about the new law.

It was the week Howard stopped the softly-softly approach and openly embraced the raw purpose of the system - that by allowing companies to cut wages, he hoped they could create jobs. It was a threshold moment for one of the greatest gambles of his fourth term".

Read Hartcher's article, here, as it is an interesting commentary on the critical issues thrown up by the new legislation and how PM Howard - now on the offensive - and his seemingly ever-obedient side-kick, Kevin Andrews, will have their work cut out to demonstate whatever benefits there ever were in the new Work Choices legislation.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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