http://www.theconcat.com.au/live The act of linking things together - Australian News, Politics and Culture Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:22:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The excellent Asian Defence Blog has one hell of a story breaking from Kolkata. Basically a C-130 Hercules flying out of the United Arab Emirates' Air Force Western Air Command base in Abu Dhabi landed to take on fuel in India and was discovered to be carrying undeclared crates of weapons. The ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2949 The Age has a good wrap up of the strange and conveniently timed demise of the NSW Labor power broker John Della Bosca. Two things raise questions here. 1) Resignation for adultery seems to be a little quaint in this day and age. When the wounded party is Belinda Neal adultery begins to ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2947 The Age has the terrifying news that, following their efforts to drown Australia's eastern seaboard with their tsunami last week, the sneaky New Zealanders have edged 30 centimetres closer to us. In a sweeping piece of misdirection their dastardly scientists are trying to downplay the move: With the countries separated ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2945 The excellent Asian Defence blog brings word that India is planning on launching it's first nuclear submarine INS Arihant (destroyer of enemies) in the next two weeks. Indians not being publicly keen on the demon drink, the wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's, Gursharan Kaur, will christen her with an auspicious ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2943 Word has come through the Robert McNamara has died. Anyone who wants to understand the history of the last 60 years has to have seen the documentary "Fog Of War". The architect of both the firebombing of Tokyo, and the worst of the Vietnam war, he was a rare monster, able to ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2940 With the demise of Michael Jackson at age 50 consuming the public imagination The Times of London has delivered an absolutely corking insight into the sad weird world of the star. Daphne Barak's long time personal friendship with the Jackson family's nanny make for a fascinating read. http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2938 Old media are having a love affair with Twitter... I suspect because it's media in a format they understand. They, the mighty, exposit. The adoring masses, in turn, become "followers", hanging (in theory) on every update, hoping to discover if there were peanuts in the latest bowel movement. With a 140 character limit ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2935 Forget Godwin Grech, forget misleading the house, or not. Annabel Crabb in the SMH has put her finger on the real implications of the whole weird sorry business: "The chief of the Motor Trades Association, Michael Delaney, insists Grant got no special favours. Delaney's remarks were repeated with enthusiasm about a gazillion times ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2933 The NY Times has an excellent article explaining what could really be happening in Iran. Basically their suggestion is that Ayatollah Khamenei, faced with a splintering of his support in the Guardian Council has cast in his lot with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the revolutionary guard. Essentially Iran is being transformed from ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2931 The Register explains the furore surrounding The Times outing a prize-winning blogging policeman. At issue is that having discovered his identity the courts refused to injunct to prevent publication of his name. While I might quibble as to there being a public interest in revealing his identity I've never thought that anonymity ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2928 The New York Times' Roger Cohen is on the ground in Tehran and has put together vignettes from the crushing of dissent following the election. London's Times had a story in the last few days which I sadly can't find, but they claimed to have seen polling by the ruling party ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2924 So Peter Costello has announced he's leaving politics. One suspects he reached this decision after his colleagues failed to beg him to lead them. So what was Peter Costello? He was one of very few Liberal MPs able to understand the benefits of genuinely liberal policies (both social and economic). Sometimes he even ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2922 The Australia is gleefully reporting that Fairfax is at long last beginning the consolidation of its redundant offices in the federal Parliamentary press gallery. Four separate Fairfax press gallery bureaux currently cover The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times and The Australian Financial Review. A fifth office services Fairfax's ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2921 Many trees have died, and many electrons have been squirted telling the tale of Senator Bob Brown's legal woes and the risk he could be expelled from the Senate were he to become a bankrupt. Firstly, it probably is distasteful for a parliamentarian to be as litigious as Bob Brown. He's ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2917 The Age informs us that the ABC has sacked their head of comedy, Amanda Duthie, over allowing The Chaser to outrage the parents of sick children. Now many years ago my boss made me write our cinema's column for the company newsletter. He wanted something funny that would stand out and ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2916 Website Collider.com has broken the news that Futurama is returning with Comedy Central ordering 13 new episodes. Collider has since been smashed off the internet by the weight of interest but Tvsquad has the gist of it. If ongoing fan interest can bring back Futurama there's hope yet for Firefly surely. http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2915 All the world remains a-twitter with talk of swine flu. Vast sums of money are being spent and there's widespread disruption which doesn't come free either. And yet the disease itself is by all accounts an extremely benign form of flu. So at the risk of being accused of conspiracy theorising, one has ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2913 Hee hee. Reuters is claiming that the implementation of climate trading in Australia is going to be pushed out to 2011. Which leaves Labor promising to do it without having to explain the economic dislocation that will ensue to the electorate. Smart politics, but perhaps a little too slick? http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2911 So we have a shiny new defence white paper. There's also a very large number of media releases outlining bits they want to draw attention to. Of striking interest seems to be a lack of interest in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) mentioned just seven times in the whole paper and almost entirely ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2910 Indian Express has an interesting article joining an avalanche of concerned coverage about the regional tooling up of blue water navies. What was news to me and of some interest was the new Japanese aircraft carrier Hyuga. As the Japanese have a constitutional restraint on building aircraft carrers they've cunningly called ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2909 So what happens when a small poor country discovers it can sell its soldiers for UN peace keeping? Well first off it finds that it can afford to make its army much bigger than it could possibly afford otherwise. Given a choice between subsistence farming, cleaning up after foreign tourists, or ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2908 The Liberals seem to have realised that Australia hates boat people and there's precious approval ratings in kicking them around in the media. Why is this? Basically we get refugees in Australia in three ways: 1. They fly in on a tourist visa and lie about their reasons for entering the country. 2. They ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2907 The New Matilda has a good piece on developments today in the telco world. Basically the Government has announced it is going to set up a new, majority government owned, company to build a national optical fibre information network. A new Telstra, only with newer infrastructure funded by the taxpayer. I like the ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2906 The normally excellent War Nerd has really jumped the shark in his latest missive. This happens often to him whenever he heads to sea.I don't know if it's the Russian perspective of his employers at The Exile, or just that he's spent too much time reading statistics in Jane's and ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2905 A reader has pointed me at an excellent story on just how rotten and corrupt the current bailouts of America's finance sector are, and how they essentially represent a coup d'etat: "As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2904 The SMH has a yarn about a few related subjects. 1) Defence has run a security once over across their Minister Joel Fitzgibbon. I'd be more alarmed if they hadn't. 2) It turns out that Fitzgibbon has had a relationship of some sort with a well connected Chinese woman. This might be ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2903 (Email reader will need to click the story link.) Pictured is the exact moment when Barack Obama got Kevin Rudd's title wrong and started calling him "Secretary Rudd". Look at those beady, beady, eyes and the laser-like intensity! Other questions: 1) We appear to have been downgraded from an ally to a friend. For ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2902 The Herald Sun has some explanation of the high drama and farce surrounding today's defeat of the alcopop tax rise. There are a few interesting things here deserving further exploration: 1) According to Laurie Oakes, Nigel Scullion missed the first vote because he was having a "stairwell meeting" with the retired Senator ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2901 No matter how bad things seem what we often need if better perspective.In my current period of reflection a friend sent me a link to F*** My Life.If you ever need cheering up its constant running commentary of the humourous suffering of others will surely do the trick. http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2900 A lot of people, much smarter than I, are concerned that the Government responses to the current financial crisis won't work the way their salesmen are promising. The concern goes on that by printing more money to solve the short term budgetary problems of Governments could lead to run away inflation, ... http://www.theconcat.com.au/live/?p=2899