HMAS Sydney - courtesy Wikipedia

HMAS Sydney was a modified Leander-class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy. The ship had great success in the first years of World War II, but controversy and mystery surrounds the loss of Sydney and its crew in November 1941. Its sinking with all hands represents the greatest ever loss of life in an Australian warship; Sydney was also the largest vessel of any country to be lost with no survivors during the war.

Queensland Nationals Senators, Ron Boswell and Barnaby Joyce, will today take advantage of Parliamentary Privilege to table - or make public - the 3,000 word Rofe Report into the 1989 'Heiner Affair'.

A really well written and pertinent analysis from Peter McMahon on Online Opinion.
Have a read.

News Radio is chock-a-block with the death of Sir Edmund Hillary at his home in New Zealand. He'll live on the minds of many, especially the Nepalese Sherpa people for whom he worked so hard in fund raising and infrastructure provision making their lives just a little easier. He'll live on in the memories of many 'boomer' like myself, as the man who first climbed Everest. Like Neil Armstrong's Moon landing, climbing Everest in 1953 was just as great a feat.

As an aside, I notice Jeremy Sear spiking Tim Blair for belittling the occasion yet again. According to Blair, Hillary said about the climb;

"Well, we knocked the bastard off"

Now......I wonder if my Mum still has that autograph of Sir Edmund's she managed to get when he visited Brisbane in the sixties?

Consider this report from colleagues Jamie Walker and Jeremy Roberts last week which indicates, again, that Hicks was no innocent abroad.

Despite all the pontification over what David Hicks was or wasn't doing in Afghanistan, what he or his family are in denial about, what defines a 'terrorist' and what doesn't, the simple fact remains that his incarceration both in Guantanamo Bay and Yatala jail were politically oriented. The only irony, if indeed any exists, lies in the fact that despite the political manouvering, nothing has been proven one way or another regarding 'guilt' and a government has been thrown out, if not as a direct result, at least partially.

Personally, I don't see Geoff Elliott's point.

Watching the ANZAC Day services from Gallipoli and Viller-Bretonneux, I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities, and differences between the two.

Interesting revelation from Andrew Bolt at the end of this morning's Insiders program on the ABC. The all too common reiteration that global warming/climate change is a non-event was there, but thrown into his irrational approach to realities everyone else accepts was a claim that the 'stolen generations' have never existed. Rudd's apology to these indigenous Australians earlier this year, which apparently helped to raise our PM into the ranks of the world's top 100 most influential persons - thanks to Cate Blanchett, according to the Dolt - comes about as a direct result of an apology for events which never happened, to a generation of indigenous Australians which have never existed.

I'd be interested to know just how many indigenous Australians were watching, and what their reactions might be to hearing that the PM is riding to fame & glory on the back of an issue which even John Howard accepted, but Andrew Bolt thinks is a complete fabrication.

I've just completed the Sunday morning ritual. Breakfast in front of 'Insiders'

I get bugger all time to browse the 'newspapers' these days, so when I spotted this brief article, I was determined to find out more.