Free Republic

Andrew Jaspan, editor of The Age newspaper in Melbourne, on ABC radio last Wednesday I WAS, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the arsehole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else. The issue really is, largely speaking, as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day and, as such, to turn around and use that...

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans. US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years. Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution. The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity. But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs...

IF Douglas Wood had emerged from captivity and blamed John Howard, Tony Blair and George W. Bush for his troubles, he would have become an instant hero in some circles. By now he would be have been offered a Chair in Middle Eastern Studies at one of our major universities, and ABC Radio National would have been renamed Radio Doug in his honour. Instead, Mr Wood had the temerity to disparage his captors, praise his liberators and declare our Iraq mission worthwhile. His name has been mud ever since. According to Fairfax columnist and former Media Watch host Richard Ackland,...

TO the objective observer there would seem to be only good news surrounding the circumstances of Douglas Wood's release from captivity. But this has not stopped people who cannot stand anything positive coming out of Iraq from finding the dark cloud inside the silver lining. According to those who conform to David Marr's "soft-leftie" stipulation for working in the Australian media, Mr Wood could have been released much earlier but for tactical mistakes by the Australian taskforce. John Howard, they say, has exploited Mr Wood's predicament for political gain. And anyway, wasn't Mr Wood just a mercenary in Iraq who...

IN A NURSING home where I once used to work during school holidays, there lay a barrel-chested man with a kind face and thick black hair. He was a Vietnam War veteran and had his own room, though he never seemed to have visitors. He was paralysed and I rarely did more than glimpse him through the door, except when called in to help with some gruesome task or other, such as a manual, which required a nurse with gloves to manually, or more accurately digitally, extract fecal matter from the poor man's backside. He also had malaria - legacy...

AN 87-year-old man who beat off an intruder with his shoe says he'll be ready if his attacker ever returns to his home. Semi-retired horse trainer Johnny Oswin was attacked by a man wielding a metal bar at his home at Mt Eliza, south of Melbourne, about 9pm (AEST) yesterday. Mr Oswin suffered cuts and bruises to his head and arms. "If he comes back, I'll do him up. I'll be ready for him next time," he said. "I didn't expect anybody to come in wanting to do me up, did I? "I'll fix him up if he comes in,...

IT is fashionable to accuse the Prime Minister of dog-whistle politics. Apparently the hysterical reaction to Schapelle Corby's verdict and the white-powder scare at the Indonesian embassy are examples of John Howard reaping what he has sown. Evidently he is responsible for the dark corners of Australian society. And last week the Prime Minister was emitting to those dark corners coded calls to anti-Indonesian racism. Or so says the Left. In truth, the Left is much better at playing its own version of dog-whistle politics. Indeed, the Left, historically, has done a better job of fanning dangerous discontent than anything...

Britain will defy French and German demands to press ahead with the ratification of the European Union constitution when Jack Straw announces this afternoon that the UK's referendum on the charter is to be put on ice. The Foreign Secretary is due to make a statement to MPs at 3.30pm during which he will explain that there is no point clogging the legislative agenda with the Bill paving the way for a referendum next year until EU member states work out how to deal with the French and Dutch 'no' votes last week. At a Franco-German summit in Berlin at...

Except for Newstalk ZB's morning host, Leighton Smith, I have never heard anyone predict the eventual disintegration of the European Union, and sooner rather than later. Yet for years I have held the opinion that this unwieldy collection of different nations cannot survive as an entity and that the more additional economic, social and political connections that are made, the less likely it is to survive. The resounding "non" in the referendum on the proposed EU constitution held in France this week is merely the first major breeze through the house-of-cards structure that is European "unity". And at the time...

NOT since the days of the Iron Curtain have the fault lines on the map of Europe appeared as stark as they do today. France, the nation that once led the rallying cry for a united Europe, has emerged as a saboteur of its own ideals, becoming the first member of the European Union to reject the proposed EU constitution. In doing so, French voters have sounded a stunning retreat of Old Europe from the dream of an "ever closer union". But they have also highlighted an ideological schism which - if it continues apace - threatens to one day...

THE media is making news again. On Monday, Newsweek admitted its report that copies of the Koran were desecrated by US officials at Guantanamo Bay was wrong. The admission came after the story provoked death and destruction across the Muslim world. It is a salutary lesson on the deadly consequences of a media too eager to report on US sins. A week earlier came another confession. A brave media outlet admitted it had a credibility problem. I would like to report that this happened in Australia, perhaps over at Chateau Fairfax. But it didn't. Still, it is big news when...

Following the online auction of a grilled sandwich allegedly bearing an image of the Virgin Mary, a bar manager in Switzerland says he wants to sell a Christ-like oyster shell. Matteo Brandi, who runs a bar in the western Swiss village of Roche, told a Swiss newspaper he came across the shell while he was opening a batch of oysters just over two years ago. "When I tried to toss one of them away, it stuck to my hand. It wouldn't slip off my palm. Like He was calling me," Mr Brandi said. The 38-year-old Italian, who says he is...

How can Americans love The Simpsons yet vote for Bush? That’s not merely paradoxical; it’s paranormal. In the recent presidential elections, Hollywood came out for Kerry. The biggest names in cinema and in television were united in their detestation of Bush. In LA, only Arnold Schwarzenegger stood out. But his brand of Republicanism seemed light years from Dubya’s – as demonstrated by his gubernatorial endorsement of stem cell research. Despite the help of everyone from Spielberg to Streisand, from Springsteen to Gary Trudeau, the luminaries who sing the songs, make the movies and draw the cartoons were crushed beneath the...

PEOPLE are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in a US-funded experiment to determine if belief in God is effective in relieving pain. Top neurologists, pharmacologists, anatomists, ethicists and theologians are to examine the scientific basis of religious belief and whether it is anything more than a placebo. Oxford's new Centre for the Science of the Mind is to use imaging systems to find out how religious, spiritual and other belief systems, such as an illogical belief in the innate superiority of men, influence consciousness. Researchers believe the study will provide insights into the war on terrorism. A...

Members of the coalition of the willing are leading tsunami relief, writes Tony Parkinson. It takes unusual Schadenfreude - not to mention a heart of granite - to clamber over the corpses of 150,000 tsunami victims in order to make a rhetorical point about war in Iraq. Enter George Monbiot, darling of the left, columnist for The Guardian newspaper, and veteran of the "evil Amerikkka" school of opinion. Amid an epic story of human suffering - and displaying crass indifference to the heroism and sacrifice of a desperate relief effort - Monbiot this week produced a crude polemic on why...

THE tsunami that shook the world has also changed the world, or certainly our part of it. Bathed in tragedy and grief, Indonesia looks to friends, and finds, as ever, Australia and the US. The first response to the tsunami is simply human, just plain solidarity and compassion for the victims. In Australia we all have our connections with these places. In June, I took the family on a holiday to Phuket, where thousands died this past week, a holiday we originally planned for Christmas. Would we have been on the beach on Boxing Day? Did any of the hotel...

AUSTRALIA is preparing to take the leading international role in the long-term reconstruction of tsunami-ravaged Indonesia with an aid package worth more than $500million to help rebuild hospitals and schools and restore water supplies in Sumatra. John Howard will fly to Jakarta tomorrow to meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The two leaders are expected to seal Australia's biggest aid package to Indonesia. Senior government ministers have agreed on the broad outline of the package, with further discussions due to take place in Jakarta tomorrow between Alexander Downer and his Indonesian counterpart, Hassan Wirayuda. The Government's historic offer to Indonesia...

INDIA has turned down foreign aid for victims of the tsunami that has killed tens of thousands of people across Asians, because it has "adequate resources", a government official said today. India had been flooded with generous offers of aid, the official said. "In fact, all friendly nations have offered help, but we feel we do have the resources to handle the situation," he said. "If at a later stage we feel we need assistance we will not hesitate to ask. "Right now we not only have adequate resources but have gone out and mounted a huge relief effort for...

AUSTRALIAN Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett will end his five-day hunger strike at a protest outside the Immigration Department offices in Brisbane today. Senator Bartlett has been fasting since Friday night in a show of support for asylum seekers refusing food at the Baxter immigration detention centre in South Australia's north. About 20 detainees have been involved in a hunger strike for two weeks. Senator Bartlett, who said he had no energy left, said other people would take over his fasting as part of an ongoing "rolling strike" into the new year, with each person fasting for a maximum of three...

THE phenomenon is well known in church circles - the one-day-a-week parishioners - people who piously attend to their conscience on Sunday before rolling up their sleeves to get down to the hard-nosed business of mammon for the rest of the week. Come Christmas Day and the pious parishioners are embraced by an ever growing band of one-day-a-year wonders who unite to show the world they truly care by rolling up their sleeves to help feed those less fortunate a festive lunch. The problem for many charities, however, is that the feelgood crowd flocks in such numbers that often the...