Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

The answer to the question of who owns water is that no-one owns water. Water belongs to the earth, it belongs to all species, it belongs to future generations. It's a common, and it's a public trust, and it's a human right. And ... no-one has the right to appropriate it for personal profit while other people are dying. (Maude Barlow)

Child care in Australia is in desperate need of an overhaul. The crisis that we are seeing with ABC Learning Centres is simply the tip of the iceberg. For years and years, we have seen the child-care sector in Australia being taken over by profiteers and being seen as an industry. Child care should be seen as an essential service. (Senator Hanson-Young)

The US National Intelligence Center releases its quadrennial scenario for the next twenty years. Grim reading.

Chinese Democracy will not be an instant classic ... . It’s Guns N’ Roses for the twenty-first century with all the rock you were missing but less of the sort of arrogance that led Axl Rose to release songs like the over-produced My World ...

"If you give me $1, I promise to give you 15¢". The SMH can't understand why people aren't taking up this outstanding offer. I think I can ...

I want to get my predictions on the record before the event. A little bit of ego, but mostly as a test of how well I have understood the events, the submissions, and the workings of the Inquiry. Others may want to make their own test.

While this smokescreen runs across the media, defence bosses are coming out ahead of the ABC doco on Howard's government and saying that Tampa was a lie.  Oh, and by way we shouldn't have gone to Iraq.  And the reaction?  Stuff-all. The yin-yang of the Liberal-Labor stories is turning into the two snakes eating each other's tail.  The quiet castigation of the Howard government's two thronged attack on the people of the  Middle East is sneaking past us in the smog.

To achieve change we need to break down existing mental models. We do this by continually challenging existing models, at every opportunity and avenue. The financial crisis provides an opportunity, as people are more amenable to change in an environment of uncertainty. Let’s use it wisely.

I'm acutely aware of the extraordinary complexity in our system, especially when tax is combined with transfer payments. I can probably take responsibility for some of that complexity. Even so, on reading the Treasury paper, it was a revelation to me that Australia's system now has no fewer than 125 taxes. It turns out that there are more taxes in Australia than there are northern hairy nosed wombats. (Ken Henry)

If Australia is to stay a living nation we need to provide ourselves with continuing moments of definition, great moments in our history that reflect both our changing nature and yet reinforce the principles by which we govern ourselves. For our generation of Australians such a moment of definition will be the establishment of our republic.

All political leaders conduct themselves as though they were in a state of permanent media, cultural and political warfare. Media cycles must be managed, everyone must stay on message, and leaders become so insulated that they actually start to believe as true their own spin. All politics becomes destructively partisan, with everything reduced to petty point scoring, when larger and more important issues loom, demanding serious attention.

Can faith pull us back from the brink? Award-winning documentary maker and former Dominican Friar Mark Dowd takes a challenging and somewhat humorous approach to the urgent issue of our time. He asks if carbon use is the new sex, i.e. a ‘sin’ in today’s world.

There was another milestone this week – the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” so known because of the shattered glass from the windows of Jewish homes and businesses, when murderous riots were orchestrated in nearly every town and village in Germany where Jews could be found.

"Every dollar spent on defence research is a theft.  They are thieving, and they are lying.  And why?  Sometimes people like (SA Premier) Rann, despite themselves, tell the truth.  He'd invited people here to have a look at the terrific business opportunities in South Australia" - Jacob Grech

Out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together. (Paul Keating)

The climate is such that we are going through a lull. The field, as Farmer George well knew, has, from time to time, to lie fallow in order to yield at a later time. Now we are beset by mangels, wurzels and turnips; I have confidence the new year will see a bumper crop of exotica.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce joined hundreds of Australians in the town of Le Hamel in Northern France, at a moving ceremony to rededicate a memorial to honour Australians who fought a decisive World War I battle. (ABC Online, Just In)

Nestled almost appropriately between a funeral parlour and a railway station, railway consortium Freightlink's office would seem too small a monolith to cast such a shade. However, when you consider who set the company up, who was at its head, and who was behind it, international interest in Freightlink's self-controlled collapse isn't surprising. The answers are: Halliburton, Dick Cheney and Malcolm Kinnaird.

It is the victory that, not so long ago, dare not be spoken of. A victory that, forty-seven years ago, RFK dared suggest might happen – in forty years. It is a victory that has repudiated the presidency of GW Bush, dead these past years, utterly. It is a victory redolent with expectation and invested trust.

"If Barrack Obama gets up in tomorrow's presidential election Halliburton is likely to come under pressure. The company and the administration have managed to kill a plethora of Federal probes.  Some relate to the well-documented success of Halliburton in winning contracts in Iraq which were not even put to public tender.  Others related to the myriad of corruption allegations. The war in Iraq has largely been outsourced, privatised if you like, and Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root, have been the greatest beneficiaries in dollar terms."  -Michael West

America’s Tuesday, our Wednesday, will be about a different, two horse, race. McCain versus Obama. So what are some distinctive points about this race. Well, the first is that the vice presidential nominees matter a great deal more than they historically have.

While Australia generally does well in international rankings, those rankings can blind us to a larger truth: Australia will not succeed in the future if it aims to be just a bit better than average. I believe that we need to revive the sense of Australia as a frontier country, and to cultivate Australia as a great centre of excellence. ... Today the frontier that needs sorting is the wider world, and complacency is our chief enemy. (Rupert Murdoch)

They seem to be the ultimate nuisance of modern society with their cool, self-focussed and pleasure-oriented lifestyle. They are criticised for being financially immature and unwilling to take on responsibility ... there is a common perception that Generation Y tends towards serial job-hopping and lacks practical workplace skills and realistic expectations about salary, promotions and job requirements.

I suggest he could do the country a greater service by taking the long view of history, from now just on a hundred years ago... Whether Kevin Rudd decides to give young Australians the appropriate lead or otherwise, they will work it out. But what they will most appreciate is some direction for their thinking based on substance and truth and mature reflection which, in this case, a century of hindsight provides. (Paul Keating)

In this month's update: how public servants have become part of the 'permanent campaign', putting at risk the distinction between marketing and explaining government policy and between genuine and politically tailored data; a comparison of political donations in the US and Australia; and a history of voting in the US.

Downer's attempt at diplomacy, through an email from one of his senior DFAT officials, was carried out four days before Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews cancelled Haneef's visa and had him sent to the Wolston Correctional Centre.

This week’s Rudd Government stimulus package is a good start, but more is needed now. It is imperative for the Federal and State Governments to stimulate business with tax cuts otherwise both unemployed and "underemployed" will jump ... . In addition the Reserve Bank must cut interest rates another 1% at each of its next two or three monthly meetings. (Gary Morgan)