A friend of mine who works for a gender rights lobby (not sure if that is the best way to put it) received an email today. In the email it said that he:

"sounds like a curry munching poofter"

How that for some racist and homophobic abuse?

And some wonder why some chose to remain in the closet. This sort of abuse is encouraged, in my opinion, by people like Abbott saying that he feels threatened by gays, and Akermanis who say that any gay AFL players should keep it to themselves.

Makes me one very angry gay man.

Educated at the St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School, the University of Adelaide and the Harvard Business School.

Worked as a commercial litigation solicitor.

As an accomplished female politician has risen to shadow roles such as Deputy Leader & Treasurer.

Some in her own ranks have dubbed this politician “the cockroach” due to "fairweather" loyalty to party leaders…as she seems to have no problems with jumping to the side of one leader to the next and passionately declaring loyalty to each, regardless of that new leader's political stance:

 "People are calling her The Cockroach," one MP told ABC Online. "She'd survive anything."

As Minister for Education, Science and Training in the Howard government she focused largely on "national standards" and performance pay for teachers. Her policies were resisted by States partially due to a confrontational approach as evidenced by statements such as:

"the states have ideologically hijacked school syllabi and are wasting $180 million in unnecessary duplication"

...and media releases that contained colourful criticisms of curriculum using descriptions such as:

"straight from Chairman Mao".

 On Julia Gillard’s rise in the polls & leadership speculation:

 "Given her record as a minister, I think Julia Gillard would make a disastrous prime minister,"

 On the Australian government’s decision to punish the Israeli government for involvement in the misuse of  passport's affair:

“The Government is facing an election. The Government is also seeking to pursue a seat on the Security Council. The Government is keen to curry favour within the Arab community,”

Could Julie Bishop be the one?

N'

I saw this comment on George Megalogenis' blog:

Mackie AvelliTue 25 May 10 (07:37am)

George, how can royalties be included as a tax? Surely they are the purchase price of a commodity owned by the Australian people. Business expense, yes. Tax, no.

George MegalogenisTue 25 May 10 (08:57am)

Hooray, someone else understand this.

This is what really needs to be said over and over again.

(Thanks to ME for the initial heads up)

In the mid-90's in the UK, there was a big scare about the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and a link to autism. A lot of the scare centred around a paper published in the Lancet by Dr Andrew Wakefield. As a result, there was a decline in vaccination rates.

In February this year Lancet (in referring to Wakefield's paper) said that they "fully retract this paper from the published record.

Today in London the General Medical Council struck Dr Wakefield from the medical register because of professional misconduct.

The GMC said he acted in a way that was dishonest, misleading and irresponsible while carrying out research into a possible link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, bowel disease and autism.

Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: "Measles, mumps and rubella vaccines have all been shown to be safe and UK families are fortunate to have free access to these which is not true of many parts of the world. The false suggestion of a link between autism and the MMR vaccine has done untold damage to the UK vaccination programme."

Good to see that justice caught up with Wakefield for putting so many children at risk.