It interests me, however, that the National Party are trying to tell companies how to run their own businesses. This seems an example of how nanny capitalism demands even stricter regulation and the right to interfere more in people’s lives than the state.

“If the reporter had been really historically aware he could have written 'sans-culottes'. But the horny guy really impressed me by shucking his slacks completely because usually, for a quickie, boys unbutton and only slightly lower their pants so their arses remain unexposed.”

But to take the job of Foreign Minister, and with it the obligation to be the international face of another political party's policies, was to step away not only from the undertakings he gave to the nation on 7 September, but to turn his back on the hopes and aspirations of the movement he founded and still purports to lead.

Peters owes his followers something better than this bizarre, lip-synched swan-song, written and performed off-stage by Helen Clark and Phil Goff. Yet, if he attempts to sing his party's own song, the results are likely to be disastrous. Not only will he confuse and alarm our friends and neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, and around the world, but he will also provoke a full-scale political crisis back home. And that can lead only to his humiliation, a new general election, or both.

He should resign immediately.

“…A big argument for the flat tax is that it’s fair — you treat everybody equally.” Daniel Mitchell, The Heritage Foundation

“Boris Akunin is interviewed by the famous French TV journalist Christine Ockrent, producer and anchor of the weekly current affairs programme France Europe Express on France 3 Television.”

But I'm not much on conspiracy theories. I prefer to give conservatives the benefit of the doubt: They don't set out to fail, they just happen to be good at it.

So, don't be so hard on President Bush. He wasn't born with a 60 percent disapproval rating in his mouth. He earned it.

Only a pipe bomb and some incidentals this time. A couple of likely lads from Lilyfield. Of course the coppers couldn't mention any names or allude to any ethnic or religious connections. That just would not do.

I wonder how far Lilyfield is from the Lakemba mosque.

A man has pleaded guilty to possessing an explosive after police allegedly found a home-made pipe bomb containing 30 nails in a car he was driving in Bondi. Police arrested Troy David Moffatt, 20, of no fixed abode, on Thursday night. He will be sentenced later this month.

Pointing to the interest of authoritarian countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia in switching to a UN-based system, US officials warned that such change would increase the risk of censorship and slow technological improvement.

The BBC's defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial has been a public relations disaster for the US military.

WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

When he woke up, Slaby found that O’Toole had glued his genitals to his abdomen, glued his buttocks together and spelled out a profanity on his back in nail polish.