The blogosphere spends an enormous amount of time and energy trying to predict who will win the next election, and micro-analysing the implications of events happening from day to day (and sometimes hour to hour) for the election outcome. It’s politics as spectator sport, with lots of people taking a violently partisan interest in the […]

I’ve mentioned before that Iraqi PM Maliki has said that the US is free to leave Iraq whenever it likes. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you talk about in front of the neo-cons, but hey, there it is. And it seems everything is not all that peachy between the head […]

Oh, god, I’m so depressed…by way of tribute, of course:
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Ingmar Bergman RIP
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So let’s recap on the Haneef affair, without concentrating on the spineless worm who thinks it’s suspicious that the doctor should want to leave Australia without one last trip to Dreamworld. What has it told us about our nation’s response to the Terrorist Threat on Our Doorstep?
It all began with the bungled atrocities in the […]

Okay, so we’ve (I’ve?) narrowed it down the choices to two:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Use comments to express a preference and then we’ll start.
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In recent days, we learned that the Bush administration is pursuing security arrangements with Iran to contain certain Sunni combatants in Iraq.  This revelation was followed closely by a rather forceful denunciation of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to target and weaken the US-backed, armed and funded Maliki government in Iraq by funding Sunni insurgents.  This created the […]

I like this Blumenthal bloke.
Watch the whole video and you’ll see the whoopin’ and hollerin’ when good ol’ Pastor Hagee invokes the senator for Israel, Joe Lieberman, in calling for war with Iran.
George W Bush will be President of the United States for another 541 days, 6 hours and 31 minutes.
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OK I missed this the first time round. But it looks like Andrews’ latest act of bastardry is designed to get around what we had been led to believe was the legal situation up to now and keep Dr Haneef in a state of limbo, detained for as long as Andrews feels like it, or […]

Charges against Haneef dropped: DPP

These two men have brought shame to Australia and hurt our international reputation. They are a disgrace to the parliament and to their profession.
If they had a shred of decency left they would announce their resignations immediately.
UPDATE:
The Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews will grant Dr Mohamed Haneef a “residential determination” that […]

Okay, here’s the suggestions we’ve had so far.  I’ve added in links in case people need some more info abut authors/titles:
Anything by Jim Thompson: The Night Inspector, Frederick Busch et al
Prayer for Barney Thomson, Douglas Lindsay.
The Surgeon of Crowthorne, Simon Winchester.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
Anything by Jose Saramago.
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth.
Neuromancer by William […]