News
Graham "Richo" Richardson, the former Labor power broker, has gone on TV and
named two MPs he thinks are actively making the push for Rudd's return. Which is less interesting for the actual content of the allegation – I mean, Jesus, of course there's people looking to get Rudd back in – then for what it suggests about Labor's continued desire to keep eating itself.
The tax forum is over and didn't everybody have a fun time? While most of the discussion was reasonably esoteric and/or functionless,
Swan did finish things up by promising a lift in the tax-free threshold to $21 000, which would be pretty great. As is, the carbon package will be lifting the threshold to $18 200, but you know, every little bit helps.
Greece is looking more and more like a member of the failed state club after
yet another round of protests devolved into violence and anarchy. This comes after Greece was forced to announce that it was going to miss its brutally ambitious deficit targets by around 2 billion euro, causing even more jitters in the already spooked global markets.
The IMF seems increasingly confident of a full-blown eurozone recession, which has struck me as about as good an outcome as the EU could actually expect right now, even going so far as to say that countries should be flipping their austerity plans around toward stimulus plans. A policy backflip which perhaps goes some way to suggesting exactly how little anyone knows how to get out of this mess.
Putin has followed up the announcement that he will return to the Presidency next year, quite possibly until 2024 – "elections" notwithstanding – with an announcement that
he wants to create a new economic network around the former Soviet nations. Oh yes, this doesn't look ominous at all.
China and Russia have combined to veto a UN Resolution seeking to condemn the actions of Syria's Assad government. While framing their opposition as concern over the effectiveness of possible sanctions (about which there was zero reference in the Resolution) and the rights of ordinary Syrians, diplomatic cables such as
this one give a better idea of what is economically at stake for the two.
Either way, utterly mendacious.
Israel, feeling the pinch of their global isolation, is apparently thinking about ingratiating themselves to the world community with
a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. While Israel is always keen to paint itself as a vulnerable outpost in the region, the reality is that being militarily and economically light years ahead of its neighbours and well equipped with nuclear weapons of its own – as well as having the might of the US at its beck and call – it does tend to overstate the potential danger posed to it by other countries. While it could certainly get away with such a strike, most likely with nothing but a bit of saber rattling to go with it, the diplomatic fallout would be nuclear-esque.
Six people have been arrested in Afghanistan for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Hamid Karzai. The number includes one of the President's own bodyguards, whose failure to actually kill the man he's been standing next to with a fully loaded weapon suggests some sort of gross incompetence more than anything else.
While we're in the mood for Islamic militants trying to kill anyone they can get their hands on, the hyper-intense
Shabab Islamists have taken responsibility for a bomb on a Somalian bus in Mogadishu that killed up to 100 people, many of them children and students. Shabab said "We have targeted the attack to 150 young Somalis who were planning to be flown to Sudan to be trained as spies,” which is just, like, shit dudes, really?
Today is Chemistry day in Nobel Prize Land, the happiest land in the world!
The prize has gone to Israeli chemist Daniel Shectman for his work on quasi-crystals, crystals wherein the atomic structure never repeats itself, in clear violation of the supposed laws of nature. Well, look who's laughing now, nature.
Guess who has Facebook? Kim Jong-il's grandson, Kim Han-sol! Interests include travel, wine, spas, democracy and the film Love Actually. I did not make any of those up.
Features
While I have no particular love for Robert Manne, I have far less love for The Australian, so watching them go at each other has been a morbidly fascinating exercise.
Here's Manne detailing The Australian's month long campaign to destroy him in the wake of his Quarterly Essay about the paper, 'Bad News'.
As Chris Christie finally and definitively quashes rumours he was considering a run at the White House, thereby cementing the Republican field in place around Mitt "Production Line" Romney, a list of
six reasons why he was better off not running, and
what this says about the state of play in the reasonably abysmal GOP field.
Oddities/Curiosities
Ain't no topless photo scandal like
a topless photo scandal engulfing an incredibly rich, soon to be married 87 year old Spanish Duchess. Duchess of Alba, we salute you!
A pretty goddamn intense interview with a woman who has around 100 separate personalities.
Video
I do not know how this is happening, but I really, really want to know how this is happening. [UPDATE:
This is how it is happening.]