Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister for the past eight years and a certified Global Village Idiot, has made this country an international laughingstock yet again.

Downer has named ten religious figures to represent Australia in a delegation to Indonesia next month for a summit on Islamic terrorism. The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly, is not among the ten.

The news of Dan ("Ted Baxter") Rather's impending retirement from the CBS Evening News has been headline news in itself, especially coming so soon after the botched report of GWB's national guard dodge. This coming less than a week before the retirement of Tom ("Ted Baxter") Brokaw from the NBC Nightly News. Peter ("Ted Baxter") Jennings continues to hold the fort at ABC The World Tonight. I hope Walter ("Walter Cronkite") Cronkite is enjoying his retirement.

I've finally decided to retire Jabberbot (in the guise of my Jabber account with the UNESCO server in Kazakhstan) from blog duty. Press releases from Greenpeace, WWF, Human Rights Watch and ICG will appear in RSS feeds posted in the appropriate places on this website.

Jabber, in case I haven't mentioned it already, is the open source instant messaging format of the future (if not the present), but the XMPP protocol has potential way above and beyond that. Trust me on this.

We haven't heard much about this in the international media. Filipino police and army dispersal officers opened fire on a demonstration of striking sugarcane farmers and mill workers at Hacienda Luisita, near Tarlac City, last Tuesday. Fourteen people were killed and at least 35 others shot and wounded.

The Central Azucarrera de Tarlac Labor Union and United Luisita Workers Union issued a joint press release on Friday condemning the massacre and calling for international support.

Glenn McGrath's maiden Test half-century at the Gabba yesterday was a masterpiece of cricket surrealism - not to mention a heartbreaking experience for the New Zealand team.

Astonishing story from Press Trust of India, reporting that the government of Gujarat state is proposing to ban people with more than two children from contesting elections there.

It's all about population control, you see. I wonder how many kids the leading members of the opposition parties have...

Now come on, admit it, you have never seen Scott Styris and Murray Wiggle together in public, now have you?

The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect on Wednesday, 16 February 2005. This is ninety days after the Russian Duma gave its formal ratification.

Kofi Annan made a statement yesterday. The UNFCCC issued a press release outlining the requirements from February 16.

The proof is out there. Now be honest, you haven't seen the two of them together, have you?

I'm devastated by the news John Ashcroft is leaving. Do you think we'll see tits on statues in Washington once more?
- Molly Ivins, The Progressive, December 2004 edition.