Do you have your own blog Veritas? I would certainly read it every day if you do. In fact, your excellent comments are the thing that keeps drawing me back here!

oh you are so kind but it really sounds like an awful lot of work !!

I agree - I enjoy Veritas' postings very much.

Though I would hope he would stay posting on here and giving us the benefit of his knowledge and views.

I think there is a good balance of posters on this forum. We cover all "bases" so it is a place where free speech is at work and is all the better for it.

No one will ever agree totally with someone else. That is what makes us such a special species. However we have the capacity to work together and discuss that is how we have progressed. Sadly some people want us to go back to the stone ages where the elite dumb down society and use them just as a resource. Hopefully this will end soon and we can back to building a better world.

it's an interesting idea the concept of having one's own blog as everyone can now be a publisher but where is all this leading to ?

To harp back to my Russell Crowe post I've watched with alarm as the blogosphere goes batshit crazy over what is now being dubbed "Utegate" over the Aussie PM's reputed attempts to help a friend get government assistance in return for use of a 13 year old utility truck in his election campaign.

Even more disturbing is Murdoch's newspaper chain in Australia which has gone on an absolute frenzy to mis-report and exagerate to inflict as much damage to a PM who had the temerity to be elected without Rupert Murdoch's personal invitation or approval.

This goes back as far to when Kevin Rudd was suddenly perceived as a real threat and Murdoch's New York Post editor suddenly recalled a night years earlier when he and Rudd had visited a New York strip club. Rudd announced it was true but said he left immediately upon realizing what the place was.

When Col Allen-the New York Post editor took Rudd,a then senior diplomat to a strip club without his knowledge it reeked of a "honey trap" case for future use.

This backfired badly on News Ltd when the public simply thought it made the current PM look more human with his prim Christian aura.

News Ltd again tried to taint the now PM before the election over a lunch he had with a former state premier who had served jail time, who has a lobbying business-a man dubbed by the former PM Paul Keating who excells with Irish humpour as the "Arthur Daley of West Australian politics"

Again this backfired badly on News Ltd with a then government minister having to resign when it transpired he was at the same lunch.

Now News Ltd own bloggers have gone into an absolute frenzy over Utegate after publishing a copy of an 'email' that confirms the utility truck story yet all government emails can be traced back to their source and it appears to be a clumsy fake.

About 6 years ago similar happened when Murdoch's empire went into a frenzied attack upon the then High Court judge, Justice Kirby-an openly gay man and world respected jurist with leftist leanings who had ruled in a case in the highest court against Murdoch.

They published ComCar (government chauffuered vehicles) records reputedly that showed Justice Kirby had trawled The Wall-an infamous gay teen prostitute hangout. Many knew it had to be nonsense at the time-Justice Kirby is highly conservative in his personal life and had lived with his Dutch partner for 40 years.

But he result was disastrous-a groveling apology to Justice Kirby but the complete decimation of a ComCar driver who foolishly participated in the scam and tried to sell his story-to a News Ltd tabloid-was fired, lost his pension and died from cancer soon after with his family claiming the scandal had killed him.

But Murdoch ?. Just more profits and a perversion of the Westminster system.

Remember-most academics claim that without the News ltd worldwide empire ramping up of the Iraq War it would never have been possible for Bush and Blair to invade.

blowing my own trumpet..

2 days ago on here, 4 days ago elsewhere ( but not on any News Ltd website which wouldn't publish my comments) I predicted the ludicrous 'utegate' affair that Murdoch tabloids were salivating over claiming it would end the career of the Oz Pm has imploded spectacularly with the likely outcome a now lame Opposition Leader, the hapless Malcolm Turnbull-nephew of art critic Robert Hughes and UK actress Angela Lansbury.

It was as I predicted and so it came to pass !

Turnbull is a fascinating character-a wealthy merchant banker and barrister who took on the Thatcher government in the British High Courts over the former MI5 spy Peter Wright who wished to publish his memoirs but was prevented by the Official Secrets Act (something I had to sign once but that's another tale).

Turnbull trounced the British Government and Wright's "SpyCatcher' became a bestseller.

Now his dreams of being PM-and down the track, President in a Republic look sunk before they really began.

And the reason ?. He colluded with a Murdoch tabloid 'political' reporter who supplied him with the details of a faked email that supposedly compromised the PM.

The wording was so rediculously funny it smelled phony, it was phony. Such are the rewards for getting into bed with media baron Rupert Murdoch, something British pollies should take note of but probably won't.

I've pondered there may be further mischief here.

Whilst pontificating over a millionaire PMs use of a rusty old truck that News Ltd hacks have gleefully claimed all week could be a 'bribe'from the PM's neighbour auto-dealer,it emerged that Turnbull as a Minister in a dying Conservative government last year approved a $10M 'grant' to one Matt Handbury,(whilst Treasury only recommended $2M) for some ecological scheme.

And who is Matt Hanbury ?.

Well apart from being Malcolm Turnbull's close neighbour in nearby harbourside splediforous mansions, Handbury is by sheer co-incidence the nephew of the very same Rupert Murdoch and son of Murdoch's sister who inherited half of the Murdoch newspapers decades ago.

Hanbury parlayed his families share of the fortune into Murdoch Magazines and sold out for mega million bucks just before the economy collapsed.

Murdoch & Hanbury hate each other. Families are like that.And Murdoch infamously holds grudges.

The plot thickens.

www.smh.com.au/