In my previous post about the stoush between Congress and Bush over the supplemental appropriations bill, I wrote:
On April 15, the money for the Iraq War runs out, and then the troops would have to be withdrawn. It’s actually very high stakes poker.
Turns out the deadline Bush referred to is a phantasm. Think Progress reports:
Now we know who’s right. A new report from the Congressional Research Service makes clear that Bush’s deadline is completely fabricated:
In a memo to the Senate Budget Committee dated Wednesday, the congressional analysts said the Army has enough money in its existing budget to fund operations and maintenance through the end of May — about $52.6 billion. If additional transfer authority is tapped, subject to Congress approving a reprogramming request, the Army would have enough funds to make it through nearly two additional months, or toward the end of July. Using all of its transfer authority, the Army could have as much as $60.1 billion available. […]
Commenting on the report, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said, “This study confirms that the President is once again attempting to mislead the public and create an artificial atmosphere of anxiety. He is using scare tactics to defeat bipartisan legislation that would change course in Iraq.�
Bryan Palmer’s been having some technical issues, and if you’re looking for OzPolitics but can’t locate it, you can find it here.
Niall Lucy and Steve Mickler, authors of The War on Democracy: Conservative Opinion in the Australian Press, recently produced a two parter on the postmodern left at On Line Opinion. Part one begins:
Pomo-bashing, like dragon-hunting, is an activity best undertaken in the suspension of disbelief. By imagining a world in which winged, fire-breathing reptiles with magical powers are real, it is possible to imagine what it might be like to hunt such creatures. Similarly, once you accept that postmodernism holds there to be no such thing as truth, you can bash it. (original emphasis)
Continue reading ‘Petard Watch’
On the face of it, you might think the fact that the government is currently conducting an inquiry into an emissions trading scheme is progress. While it’s pretty unlikely that the likes of Howard and Minchin actually support the use of a trading scheme to achieve meaningful reductions in emissions, one might think that any scheme is better than none, and with a bit of rejigging of targets can offer the mechanism by which the reduction process is managed.
However, I was wondering idly about nightmare scenarios, where a government could coopt the process of setting up an emissions trading scheme in such a way as to not only delay cuts in greenhouse gases, but make it impossible to fix things later.
Continue reading ‘An emissions trading trap?’
An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
We don’t usually link to all the various blog-carnivals going on, but I thought that with the cool weather coming on, and some grey skies as well, that this weekend might see some of our readers inside with time on their eclectic hands. If you’ve never caught up with the blog-carnival phenomenon, it’s where a theme/topic is selected and people are invited to submit posts that fit the theme/topic, and then after a week or two a host-blogger posts a link-fest of posts fitting the theme/topic for people to peruse. Blog-carnivals are somewhat like Club Troppo’s Missing Link, except that carnivals usually have a tighter focus, rotate amongst different blogs and are published less often.
There’s a good explanation of how and why people bother with blog-carnivals at Blog Around the Clock.
In no particular order, here are some current carnivals:
Continue reading ‘Carnivalia’
… with a few gratuitous cheap shots at various targets along the way.
Trawl through the archives here and at Tug Boat Potemkin and you’ll find plenty of evidence that, unlike Mirko “A person’s moral worth cannot be assessed by reference to one or two acts and no punishment is too severe for people who betray their mates” Bagaric*, I’m a bit of a rights buff. I think that an Australian Bill of Rights, which set a few limits to the extent to which governments - and government functionaries - at all levels can intrude on the liberties of individual citizens is long overdue.
Continue reading ‘Another quick ramble around the topics of welfare and liberty …’
Hell does exist according to Pope Benedict. Not so much fire and brimstone and demons with hot pokers (as erronously reported in the media) but a place of torment for those that reject God. Not that it will sway those infidels already with a season ticket on a one way ride.
Indeed in modern times, visions of Hell have moved away from Jean-Paul Sartre stated that hell is other people. Gary Larson had all sorts of visions of hell usually involving banjos, accordions and other instruments of torture.
So dear reader, you have been livin’ easy, living’ free. You are going down so what do you expect Hell to be like?
As for me, Hell would be reliving the ‘98 and 2005 rugby league preliminary finals as well as the 2001 grand final over and over again. Or being stuck in, say the Reverend Fred Nile’s vision of heaven.
Continue reading ‘Hell ain’t a bad place to be’
You’d almost start to believe the rumours that Dubya is back on the Bourbon in a big way, and that Laura Bush is spending her nights in a Washington hotel to avoid her hubby. I’m kinda not kidding, because if you read anything about the last days of Tricky Dick Nixon, the Man was tripped out on all sorts of pills washed down with good old Kentucky whiskey, and apparently ranting and raving constantly at the portraits of JFK and LBJ on the ground floor of the White House (Nixon’s attempt to rebrand himself as RN never really caught on…). General Haig, otherwise known for his “I’m in charge” moment after the assassination attempt on Reagan, explicitly issued orders down the military chain of command that nothing the President decided was to be obeyed without the counter-signatures of the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Chief of Staff. Kissinger got drunken phone calls at 2am telling him to nuke Moscow. Now, Bush being back on the grog might just be a rumour. But rationality has never been his strong point. Compare for yourself - objectively - the vid over the fold shows the Decider-in-Chief and Speaker Nancy Pelosi both discussing the supplementary appropriations bill.
Update: John Amato has tracked down the bloggers Bush quoted from in the vid.
Continue reading ‘“Members of Congress need to stop making political statements”’
Those evil unions, they’re all so rigid, so stuck in the past. They still believe that negotiating should at least involve, you know, negotiating; that deals should involve trading something for another thing. WorkChoices, on the other hand offers us all the flexibility to have exactly the same conditions as everyone else, and the right to give up some of our conditions without being forced to accept something else to compensate for the loss.
The Howard Government has provided us all with an exciting opportunity choice to have exactly the same crappy agreement as everyone else. Flexible! Individual! Just as long as it’s black…
According to Julia Gillard:
Casual employees at Darrell Lea are being asked to sign an AWA which cuts casual loading, weekend and public holiday penalty rates, rostering protections and sick leave.
There is no increase in the hourly rate of pay to compensate for the loss of all these conditions and there is also no entitlement to a pay increase over the five year life of the Agreement.
Darrell Lea has expressly stated that it has offered exactly the same AWA to every casual employee and has not sought to negotiate terms and conditions individually.
Happy Birthday, WorkChoices!
Continue reading ‘Any agreement you like - as long as it’s this one’
As an update to my leadership stoush Santoro plot story yesterday, over the fold is Christian Kerr’s tale of today’s twists and turns in the farcical saga of the Santoro payback.
Continue reading ‘Queensland Libs - farcical the next day too…’
Dr Carmen Lawrence has just announced her intention to leave politics by stepping down as the Member for Fremantle at the next election. Her press release is below the fold.
Carmen’s reputation will be a very mixed one, so feel free to share your views below (although do try to be civil).
WA Labor hacks may feel free to discuss the inevitable preselection stoush for the seat of Fremantle.
Continue reading ‘Ah! Carmen!’
Watching the sports news on TV last night left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The item about Australia’s latest cricket victory made no mention of the murder of Pakistan’s coach in the West Indies last week. Of course, why should it, when the World Cup goes on…
Yet as Ian Chappell argues, the murder has tainted the game. I felt tainted just watching it. I don’t think any of us should be watching it. As British sports journalist Mark Nicholas eloquently argues, only greed is letting the Cup go ahead.
It should be stopped, simple as that.
A guest post by Bernice.
Overnight, Turnbull, Federal Environment Minister, announced plans to spend $200 million, aiming to stop deforestation in Asia.
Mr Turnbull says a global response is needed and the $200 million project will be used to plant trees and reduce illegal logging in South-East Asia.
“The funding will go, given the nature of our geography, will largely go to South-East Asia,” Mr Turnbull said.
“The biggest deforesters in the world or the places where the most deforestation of tropical forests is occurring are in Brazil and Indonesia, they’re the top two so naturally our focus is going to be on our part of the world but we’re not limiting it to that.”
Timing is everything in politics, as The White Rabbitt knows. In a week where the issue of David Hicks has been neutralised, his government suddenly pulls this out of the hat. On the same day that Howard met Nicholas Stern. On the same day that Howard demonstrated his continuing skepticism regarding the impact of climate change. His comments about Stern were at the best patronising, at the worst downright insulting, but more importantly, he again demonstrated he simply doesn’t get it. It’s the environment, stupid.
Continue reading ‘Gunns, Turnbull & Due Process’
Sir Nicholas Stern has come to Australia to impress on us the urgency of action on climate change, telling the SMH that rich countries should reduce their emissions by 60 to 90% by 2050 and by 30% by 2020.
He believes that “targets are crucial”, pointing out that by 2050 we will be two or three times as rich with vastly increased demands for energy.
Peter Hartcher says that neither Labor nor the Coalition measure up. Stern, he says, would do well to talk over the heads of the politicians to the public who are well ahead of the politicians as serious changes need to be made that “will involve everyone”.
Continue reading ‘Stern comes to town’
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