Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Having endured the sharp climate upheavals of the Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles, humans are likely to survive in suitable environments, including clouded tropical mountain regions, high elevation islands and cool high latitudes regions. Hinging on extensive agriculture in temperate climate zones, prone to severe droughts, on cultivation in low river deltas, prone to sea level rise, and on irrigation of mountain snow-fed rivers, the future of civilization under global warming on the scale of several degrees Celsius is less clear.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end. (President Obama)

Who are you? Where did you come from? What experiences have you brought to this country? What are you doing? How are you being treated by the Aussies? This was before we ‘wogs’ and ‘blackfellows’ became Aussies ourselves. That is what we talked about.

If a company like General Motors can be allowed to go bankrupt then there is a big question mark about US unreserved support to Israel regardless of its actions. One does not have to share Burston’s world view to follow his logic.

The IPA is, of course, concerned with private rather than public affairs, its extreme neo-liberalism and deification of the so-called free market displaying a thoroughgoing contempt for anything public: public ownership, public service, public transport and, indeed, the public itself. It is the ideological mouthpiece of very private enterprise that likes to glorify in the name of “free” enterprise. (Norman Abjorensen)

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with – dare I say it – joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job. But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! (Michael Moore)

May stats & financials

Come dear friends, let me take you by the hand, and lead you through the streets of Zhong Guo; a dialectical magical mystery tour into the dungeons and dragons deep in the heart of the Middle Kingdom reaching all the way back to the Tang Dynasty. Enjoy a few postcards as truth turns into fantasy, while fantasy turns into truth; if only in a small way.

Dear Dr Henry, I read, with some bemusement of your call to the Rudd government to press ahead with reform. With respect, you yourself have the power, within your sphere of influence as Secretary of the Treasury and adviser on tax reform, to press ahead with the four most important reforms that Australia should undertake.

Ever been on the receiving end of a call centre Droid? Someone who instead of answering your query, badgers you with question after question? You bet. It’s part of daily life and we are told that this benefits us by improving call centre efficiency.

"How would Australia be different if he were prime minister? What are his most closely held policy convictions? I asked dozens of Malcolm Turnbull's political colleagues this question, asking them to name three. Many of them had to pause before responding. (Annabel Crabb)

A very important message from the Middle Kingdom ... and keep watching this space.

The couple rang QANTAS to advise them of the predicament, and the airline gave them permission to make the flight. Loretta tells me that health authorities, when advised of QANTAS and the couple's decision, "were about to go into a meeting and would discuss it there" and would ring them back later in the day. The call was never returned.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has promised to dismantle the 22 illegal outposts "already in the coming weeks." But anyone listening to him will laugh. He didn't even evacuate one outpost when he was Ehud Olmert's defense minister, when he had the prime minister's full support to do so. Now he's going to evacuate settlements, under Netanyahu, who actually favors expanding them? (Nehemia Shtrasler)

The implications of climate change for ecosystems are illustrated in the new book Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming by Anthony Barnosky, of Yale University. Despite intensified warnings from the Copenhagen climate conference, as a self-fulfilling prophecy the government’s “great moral issue of our time” is being relegated to secondary priority. Given that warnings by scientists have proven mostly correct, as contrasted with watered-down reports percolating upward through bureaucracies, there is little evidence the Rudd government is listening to the recent dire warnings by climate scientists.