International:

A full report on the Internet kid, Alex, and my trip to Melbourne is now on-line.

Alex's Scribbles Koala trouble was given high acclaim but failed to take out the top prize this year. I was rather annoyed by the antics of one of the judging panel, but was pleased that young Trishnan had a chance to win this year.

One of the remaining four dangerous escapees was arrested at a service station in northern New South Wales last night.

Oliver Alcinic one of three convicted murderers to escape was cornered and gave up without a fight once he realised that he was trapped.

While Alcinic was paying for fuel three detectives arrived - the escapee dashing into the back of the workshop and out to the back where he could not climb over the two metre high security fence.

Brendan Abbott (the mastermind behind the escape), Jason Nixon and Andrew Jeffrey are still at large.

Political:

Ex-prime minister Paul Keating has been lauding it over the airwaves again - last night he was on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABCs) Seven Thirty report talking about Wik and the Republic.

He seems to have lost some of his old abilities with the presenter cornering him on one of his statements he had made with respect to the comment that "Patural leases would extinguish Native Title"... a fact which became a fallacy following the successful Wik case in which pastoral lands were found to co-exist with pastoral leases.

The judgement has been behind the fracas about native title and John Howard's ten point plan on native title.

You Say:

Subject: 2000 site

Dear Sir,

I came across a site that is calling for the boycott of the 2000 Olympics.

In my opinion it is one of the worst anti-Australian sites I have seen. The "hero" Lorenzo Whatzisname gets a mention as well as an item on Aboriginal boycotts. (I wonder if anyone has told these people that Cathy Freeman is not boycotting the games.)

regards from
S.E. Wagger

The site is a virtual copy of Ervin's infamous post by Left Link in August... a copy of the post is stored here.

Editor.

Subject: One Nation is doomed

One Nation Supporter -

your party is for those people in Australia with no meaning - hence they must resort to un-educated ideals which hinder Australias' growth. All you are doing is giving lower class Australian citizens 'quick fix' methods for their insecurity about the future of this country. It it useless to use this sort of insecurity to win votes, for all you are doing is destroying your party in the long term. One Nation is a passing phase which WILL die out - there is no such thing as a party in a modern democratic society that encourages racism, hate, lack of education and short term fixes.

You know you are appealing to the low life people of this country, those without positive, future seeking value systems. One nation is a quick fix for now - it does not look to the future. Closing off Austraila to the outside world will only hinder us more as will all of Pauline Hanson's views.

You are not introducing a 'One Nation', you are introducing a 'Half-nation' one that encourages all the things that already hinder Australias' growth, like laziness, unwillingness to work hard and acheive goals, lack of education, reliance on government allowances and racism. Your 'One nation' will become two 'Half Nations' the majority half having the wisdom and education to see what is wrong and act accordingly based on true long term goals, and the other minority half looking for quick fixes in their un-educated un-principle based lives. Get out before you destroy Australia anymore -

Timothy deVries
Engineering Student

Personal trivia, from the global office:

Great to be back with the river..

Have a good one.

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