Prime Minister John Howard has signed an historic deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the sale of Australian uranium to the totalitarian dictatorship-turned beacon of democracy. Mr Howard told reporters he is pleased that Australian radioactive materials could soon be poisoning Russian investigative journalists across Europe.

In the midst of unprecedented security associated with the APEC summit about to begin in Sydney, Australians are perhaps reflecting this evening how fortunate it is that this is a liberal, democratic nation, founded on the ideals of political and social freedom, and dedicated to the preservation of these ideals and freedoms in perpetuity.

Some president or something or whatever they have over there from one of those Northern Hemisphere countries arrived in Sydney at 10 p.m this evening to participate in an APEC meeting with 20 other world leaders, on the same day that Chinese President Hu Jintao set down 300 kilometres away in Canberra for a little light pre-summit diplomacy.

A recent accounting of Government advertising and public relations over the 11 years of the incumbents' reign puts the total spend over the period at more than $2 billion dollars. Health Minister Tony Abbott has defended the record expenditure, but critics say the enormous fund should have easily been enough to allow the Government to create in the Australian people a sense of perfect contentment and unreserved satisfaction with all aspects of the ruling party's agenda and conduct.

Big Brother, Survivor and other reality televisions shows are widely considered a blight on Western civilisation and a symptom of serious cultural decline a la Marcuse. But new research suggests young people who have fallen victim to the vacuous eye-candy have been inadvertently schooled in one area of relevance to civic life: namely matters related to the ballot. The vote. Election.

On the day the Australian Labor Party launched its workplace relations policy ahead of the coming election, the long-standing Opposition Party has attempted to have a bet each way. The ALP has promising to restore the power of trade unions by forcing Australian workers to be signatory to union-negotiated 'Awards'. But at the same time, the Party's Deputy Leader Julia Gillard has given a clear indication the Party has abandoned its role as a defender of the rights of the ordinary worker, instead pledging to support employees and executives with equal fervour.

Several citizens of the United States have been slightly hurt today in a devastating accident in Delaware, Maine. Others who witnessed the horrific disaster that has become headline news across the world say they were 'shocked', 'surprised', and 'worried', when a shopping trolley filled with Oreos, Twinkies, and other high-fat, sugary name-brand products rolled past aisle 6 towards the checkouts.

Long-simmering leadership tensions between tiny Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello have been reignited today, with blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Legislation related to a non-racist Federal Government intervention in Indigenous communities in Australia's Northern Territory has been swooshed through a pliant Parliament by a triumphant Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough. In NT's Indigenous communities the cry has at last reached thousands of joyous souls: 'civilisation is at hand'.

Radio talk-back host Stan Zemanek has been described as being in a 'malingering and slacking' condition as he wilts before the onset of a brain tumor.

A group of Australian managers has recently returned from a two-week team building exercise in which they walked Papua New Guinea's Kokoda Track, on the way developing a degree of vicarious resilience not witnessed since 1942, when the region saw brutal and intense combat between units of the Japanese Imperial Army and an ad hoc force comprised of Australian militia and regular forces.

It is well understood that cruel and fraudulent practises abound in this fraught and troubled world of ours, perpetrated ad nauseum and in the main by those entirely without scruple. Now a new and ugly fraud is being practiced on many of those who decide to broaden their horizons by learning the planet spanning lingua franca 'English.' Diligent study of the language of choice of recent global oppressors is now likely to be rewarded with disappointment rather than opportunity, with many discovering only too late they have not learned English at all, but are instead speaking American.

Citizens in the major Western duocracies are celebrating imminent victory in their three-year old campaign to impose their self-evidently superior governmental system on Iraq, after it was announced Prince Henry Saxe-Coburg is to be dispatched to the now-troubled country to resolve what some more cynical analysts have referred to as a 'stalemate'.

Maxine McKew's decision to leave the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and run on the Labor Party ticket against the Prime Minister in his Sydney electorate of Bennelong is all very well and good, except that now she'll have to start taking the injections.

Despite bringing employment and industry to many poorer regions of the world Coca Cola is now under increasing threat from an intransigent and ungrateful third world population. Of course, the truth is, it's all very easy to take a huge, benevolent corporation like CocaCola-Amatil to task. But the truth is nobody is more interested in bringing the pleasant luxuries of the West to impoverished humans in disadvantaged corners of the planet than the goodly executives of Coke.

After four long years of the United States occupation of Iraq and with reports of escalating attacks against the occupation forces in major population centres and a handful of provinces now reaching even the US public, many questions remain unanswered and many uncertainties remain. Among them - perhaps the most vital foreign policy question - for the West and for the people of Iraq - ou est Tintin?

The US War of Independence ended in 1783, since which time the British have appeared unable to gain redress from the upstart colony. But 200 years after French support of American troops led to ignominious defeat for the Empire the United States is committed to continued force extension in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Now a transcript obtained by our intrepid researchers of audio recorded during a recent infraction at a military installation in Maine has shed light on British operations that appear to be the first moves in the second phase of the prematurely named War of Independence.

New humans coming into existence in Australia face additional legislative hurdles following passage of a Bill through Parliament that approves the creation of embryos specifically for scientific research and medical experimentation.

The oculube crisis has worsened rapidly in recent days as senior ministers are hastily recalled from a three week House of Representatives recess for a National Security Council meeting to be held in a bunker deep beneath Parliament House in Canberra.

Media industry sources say they cannot identify the specific target of an emerging disinformation campaign now making headlines online, in print, and on broadcast media around the world.

The recent successes of Australia's resource industry have led to a glut of newspaper articles, television segments, and web pages devoted to congratulating executives for their perspicacity and insight in digging stuff out of the ground in order to gratify massive - indeed, seemingly inexhaustible - demand from overseas industrial giants China and India. But the devotion of the media to the wealth flowing to massive corporate entities as a result of digging things out of the ground is in itself representative of a significant problem - not so much an economic problem as a philosophical one.

This brief article concerns a topic that has received little attention in recent times in the papers and journals of this nation, despite its significance and possibly portentious merit -what a wonderful coincidence it is that the only two serious choices Australians have at election time are exactly the two political parties that Australians consistently prefer to elect. It could be said, on consideration, that this happy circumstance is the lynchpin without which our fair democracy might fly apart, and without which the social contract would seem quite worthless.

Like mind/body duality and the big bang, the idea of balance in the media is a dangerous concept that can only lead us down a path that ends with the total destruction of Western civilisation.

The Federal Government's announcement of the decision to hobble the Senate committee system might trouble those luminaries of the Liberal Party concerned not only with an immediate ideological agenda and the dividends of electoral providence but with the long-term future of the Australian Parliament. And the dangerous political decision might at the same time put the people on their guard.

Sample a selection from the populist and libertarian new CD Jamelot, assorted flamencish and djangoesque with salubrious bottoms and jazzy strains. Old-style traditional funk and mumble performed at Jamelot in the north with Matt and Jules on double bass and banjo. All music played on conventional instruments, then recorded.

News NASA's latest unmanned probe has arrived in a Mars orbit has excited astronomers, who expect some of the best pictures of the surface of an alien planet to be returned to Earth later in the year, afforded by the hi-tech instruments installed in the spacecraft. Now, though, in an unprecedented coup, the Irony Party of Australia has obtained pictures of alien worlds beyond even the wildest dreams of the US-based Space Agency.

The leaking of radioactive material at Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor earlier this week provided the media with a welcome case in point only days after Prime Minister John Howard announced the Government will inquire into the possible development of nuclear energy on the Australian continent. But the attempts of the anti-nuclear lobby to spin a nightmarish tale from the incident have proved fruitless, with the nuclear accident in actuality nothing more than a red herring. In fact, it has been revealed, the safe radioactive leak was quite safe.

At a pleasant soiree in Washington this evening, a bipartisan congregation of Senators, Ambassadors and other luminaries have toasted the newly sworn in US Defence Secretary, Alistair Spottybug. Defence Secretary Spotybug, a tiny insect who until recently lived with his family in Australia, assumes the prominent role at a difficult time, with ongoing problems in the satrapy of Iraq, unrest in Latin America,nukes in Iran, and the embarrassing hi-jinx of al Qa'eda that continue despite massive displays of overwhelming force by the United States.

Some enraged extremists continue to put the case (on lurid web pages and at the tops of their voices though home alone) for an indiscriminate scorched earth policy for all 50 States of the Union, but a more measured approach is in evidence, of late, from the elusive leaders of many of the battalions of a fast-growing, vast and varied anti-American army. In an audio recording made available yesterday to rss feed readers and on internet browsers around the globe, the collective leadership of the dire and determined American foe has issued an edict online promising amnesty and free passage to the host and writers of the single redeeming feature of US culture, the Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart, in the event of coming large-scale war in an American theatre.

When we learned irrefutably that Satan has no chin, we began to see him everywhere. Now no-one was safe. Some appeared to be more susceptible to his influence, and quickly succumbed. In the press of the crowd, under the blazing midday sun or in the long shadows of evening, or in the dead of night we were on guard but defenceless, wary without recourse, unnerved by the fear ever-present in one another's eyes, the portentious appearance of a reconstructed Babel, and the incessant howling of dogs.

The bungled, illegal, malingering war on Iraq is now an increasing liability for Republicans in upcoming Congressional and presidential elections in the United States, and pressure has been growing on President George W Bush from all sides to retire US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, who many consider largely responsible for the deadly mess and an embarrassment to a generally incompetent Adminstration. Today the President finally acquiesced, and after Donald Rumsfeld's reluctant resignation this morning, Bush wasted no time in making a public announcement as to the unfortunate war-monger's replacement.

The Royal visit to the Colonies of The Antipodes for the Opening of the Commonwealth Games has been heralded with pomp and flattery in all the nation's media, and the Queen feted at ceremonial dinners in half of the nation's major cities. But the visit of the Queen to Australia has also revived debate on when the independent State of Australia will shed its monarchic tradition and become a Republic.
The Prime Minister John Howard has restated his opposition to an Australian Republic. But many Australians are determined to gain full independence from Old Blighty, in name as well as deed, with the appointment of an Australian head of State. The Irony Party of Australia, though, warns in this telling, succinct pictorial tableau that the process of substantial Constitutional reform inherent in the allure of Republicanism is fraught with pitfall and potential disaster.

The latest and newest Batman comic follows the further exploits of Batman engaged at the pointy end of twenty-first century warfare against dastardly terrorists who will stop at nothing to achieve their insane ends.But this time Batman's are not merely the fantastic invention of Hollywood hacks. This time the terrorists are the dangerous militant Islamic organisation Al Qa'eda.But rare footage of the quasi-superhero Batman on a clandestine mission for the Forces of Light deep inside Iraq provides irrefutable evidence of an appalling tragedy that could give succour to the evil enemies of the free and the just.

For too long the mistreatment, persecution and derision of animals that persists in the advanced cultures of the twenty-first century has gone unmentioned and unnoticed. Now, though one eloquent dog has spoken out about his experiences living as a disenfranchised and often cruelly anthropomorphised 'lesser mammal' in a human-dominated civilisation.

Sydney-based radio talk show host Alan Jones has been horrified of late, he says, by a slew of half-verified reports from Iraq that hint at a nightmarish terror lived daily by citizens of the Coalition-occupied country. It's true to say that bringing freedom to Iraq has been more challenging than had initially been conceived. But why are there so few happy stories emerging from the deadly war-zone onto television screens in the West?

The United Nations last week increased pressure on Iran to suspend nuclear research activities that some say represent the realisation of Iranian plans for the development of nuclear weapons. A directive from the Security Council of the UN calls for Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment or face possible sanctions. And Security Council members have meanwhile hinted at the prospect of military strikes on nuclear facilities.But the Iranian Government has taken the warning lightly. Vexed American and European diplomats and power-brokers hoping for capitulation in the face of a Western threat of force were instead advised in a media release from Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations that 'Computer says no.'

Are you and your loved ones prepared for the event of a local outbreak of Honxqp in your town or region? The likelihood that a vaccine for the particular strain of Honxqp affecting your community can be produced in time to address the initial wave of sickness in your area is, unfortunately, slim. Don't wait until something strange and terrible happens in the home of your little ones. Act now to prevent the spread of the infestation of the sinister Honxqp.

With Iraq on the brink of a sectarian civil war following this week's bombing of the Shrine of the Hidden Imam in Samara, sinister Mossad operatives, smooth talking MI6 spooks, and CIA chiefs in the United States are today annoyed and sour-faced, wearing expressions of mild distaste and indulging in petulant displays of irritation that drive underlings into abject humiliation and only contribute in a small way to repairing damaged pride. After at least 1300 deaths resulting from revenge attacks in the days since the bombing, foreign leaders and military commanders are clearly angry at the perpetrators, not least because the timely bombing has disrupted CIA, Mossad, and MI6 nation-building plans for Iraq that included an identical explosion.

While US Vice-President Dick Cheney is being praised for the quick thinking and finely-honed reflexes that automatically swung into play during an emergency at a recent quail hunt, elsewhere in the world the Veep's gun-slinging exploits have been pushed from television screens and web by reports on the adventures of pin-up crack shot insurgent sniper Juba, a quasi-mythical quail hunter thought to be responsible for capturing at least four dozen brace of exotic game in recent years in Iraq.