MUCH OBLIGED OSAMA.

"What are we to call whatever it is that George W. Bush is figure-heading? A presidency? An administration? Somehow regime seems most appropriate. Anatole Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington puts it well: "Bush wants nothing less than unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority." So regime it is."

"The regime has all its ducks in a row. The mid-term elections provided much more than a mandate. Almost without precedent, the President's men control not only the White House but the Congress and, most ominously, the Supreme Court. As well, they have a compliant media and, apart from the unmediated flow of protests on the internet, a largely acquiescent population. The regime has bullied and browbeaten the UN into submission and enjoys the unflinching, unswerving, unblinking, unthinking loyalty of two Western governments: Tony Blair's and ***John Howard's. (As in Australia, the fear of looking unpatriotic inhibited the Opposition: the Democrats made exactly the same mistakes as Labor.)"

"Dubya's most effective backing has come from Osama bin Laden. It's al-Qa'ida that promoted Bush from a problematic, derided figure to the man with the mandate – and a mission."

Full article by the estimable Adams.

***Howard backs Santa

(30nov02) Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said he believed in Santa Claus.

"I do believe in Santa," he told Melbourne radio 3AW. "I'm no longer a child but I believed in Santa when I was a kid . . . so therefore I believe in Santa."

A sad but true quote. Little wonder George can get him to believe the line he is spinning.

No doubt the Prime Minister will be dressing up in the big red suit to deliver presents to the little heathen refugee children still on holidays behind the razor wire in the back blocks of Australia. Now that's a continuing disgrace that has been conveniently consigned to the cutting room floor of media outlets in the wake of Bali, inspection teams and Kenya.

The famines, floods and droughts around the world that are usually "sexy" media fare, with lots of you beaut pics of skeletal children with those cute big brown eyes, likewise seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. Maybe they all were "solved" when I wasn't looking, inattentive bastard that I am.

Thank God that a bit of sanity prevails in editorial offices around the globe and we can still get a picture and story of the latest newborn baby Dubbya chimpanzee at a major world zoo. Priority is everything in these troubled times.