How re-assuring to hear PM Howard tell the people of Australia [well, those in employment - bearing in mind that working for 1 hour a week qualifies as being employed!] that the new IR laws will, in effect, readily allow employees to go and look for another job. In what orbit the PM and his side-kick, Kevin Andrews, live is debateable. More to the point, how far are they removed from the real world? To say the least Australia is on the cusp of needless disputation, anguish and division in the community as the proposed IR laws are debated. And to proceed on the basis of the PM's assurance that people should rely on his record is down-right scary. Wasn't this the PM who invented core and non-core election promises? See what even the SMHs' blogger has to say on the whole IR matter.
Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary. The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the
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