Politics is a dirty word

The US missile defence shield is still undergoing trials and there is no guarantee it will work if North Korea launches an attack. In recent days,the US managed to destroy a missile launched from a Pacific base to simulate an attack on America.A missile developed by Raytheon, known as a 'Kill Vehicle' brought the incoming missile down but apparently the success rate of the missile defence system is only 40%.

Politicians are likely to demonstrate their inability to grasp economic realities at the State of the Nation Conference being held in Canberra by the Committee for Economic Development Australia. Both the Government and opposition have demonstrated that they have no agendas which have any hope of returning the budget to surplus in the foreseeable future. Both sides of politics are unable understand the fundamental issue of cutting spending and are locked into an irrational time-warp dream of perpetual economic growth to drag us out of our economic woes. They need to address realities, not illusions and should be looking at adopting a steady-state economic model proposed by John Stuart Mill. Such economies are not driven by booms and busts but are stable or mildly fluctuating in size.Steady State Economics presents a different view of how we could run the world, instead of chasing the illusion of perpetual growth. It offers the concept of an economy that is completely sustainable. A co...

The UK's Daily Star newspaper has published a map show how far North Korean nuclear missiles can reach. Darwin is vulnerable as is the entire US west coast, including Alaska. With the enhancement of North Korea's missile technology, the Australian Government is believed to be cxonsidering spending billions of dollars on a missile defence system, such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) hardware being offered around the world by the US.

Ministers for Consumer Affairs throughout Australia have failed consumers by allowing potentially harmful substances to be included in food products without requiring the additives to be identified on labels. A prime example of this has been fish farming in Tasmania where the ABC TV Four Corners program revealed that additives are included in fish food to colour the flesh of salmon. The same additives are widely used in the poultry industry to colour egg yolks and the flesh of chicken meat. Ministers allow the additives, even on free range poultry farms despite being completely unnecessary.

Lets hope that the Lindt Cafe debacle leads to some fundamental changes in Australia's policing and counter-terrorism standards. It has been just one example demonstrating how wrong the Australian Prime Minister is when he makes claims that 'we have 'the best police and security services in the world.' Their training has been inadequate, but maybe the problems can be rectified. Quite apart from the question of why Man Haron Monis was allowed to be walking the streets when he was a known risk there is no question that the lone gunman could have been eliminated by a sniper from across the street. SAS troops are trained assassins and could have used 566 steel tipped penetrating ammunition to take out Monis with almost no risk to hostages.The ammunition was developed in Belgium for ant-terrorist actions and is used all over the world. Or, once it was know that he was acting alone, a single marksman with a handgun could have entered the cafe and shot Monis dead. The mass en...

US President Donald Trump signed a deal with Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth $350 billion over 10 years. It includes supplying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system known as THAAD designed to destroy incoming missiles. Mr Trump's next stop is Israel and it will be interesting to see what reception he gets and what deals are made.

Pakistan is believed to have more than doubled its arsenal of short range tactical missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Realistically the only targets it can reach are in Afghanistan,parts of Iran, India or inside its own territory to halt any invading troops.