• NEWS.com.au | Labor MPs discuss Latham spill (January 14, 2005): LABOR MPs have begun meeting to discuss a possible replacement for Opposition Leader Mark Latham amid mounting speculation about his health and future. ... But Mr Fitzgibbon said Labor MPs would not turf Mr Latham out of his job just because he had suffered a second bout of pancreatitis. It's ridiculous that Latham is being hounded out of politics like this - I think they're just bad losers, they need to blame somebody more than they need to get on with their job as Opposition.
• NEWS.com.au | Charles orders sons to Auschwitz (January 14, 2005): BRITAIN'S Prince Charles has reportedly ordered his sons to visit Auschwitz after Prince Harry caused outrage around the world by wearing a Nazi uniform to a party. Seems appropriate.
• The Australian: Thaw sees grass take hold in Antarctica [December 27, 2004]: GRASS has become established in Antarctica, showing the continent is warming to temperatures unseen for 10,000 years. Scientists have reported that broad areas of grass are now forming turf where there were once ice-sheets and glaciers. (older news post, via linkfrenzy). I'm no expert, but that sounds like a Bad Thing.
• How not to get people into jobs - Opinion - www.theage.com.au: The Government has an interesting response when it is pointed out how unsuccessful work for the dole is in getting the unemployed into work. It blithely states that work for the dole was never meant to help people into employment. My theory: work for the dole, just like centrelink, is designed to make unemployed life so desperately miserable that people will do anything at all to get out of the system (and hence no longer claiming welfare money). Some ideas might have been an attempt to catch those few people who really do bludge off, but those people invariably figure out how to work the system anyway. The rest try to do the right thing, only to discover they are treated like they're trying to rort the system.
• NEWS.com.au | US military wanted 'sex bomb' (January 14, 2005): Declassified documents reveal the Pentagon toyed with the idea of an aphrodisiac chemical weapon in 1994. ... The weapon's developers said homosexual behaviour among troops would deal a 'distasteful but completely non-lethal' blow to morale. Perhaps they should have chosen their words more carefully.

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