For half a day, at least, it was the most inspired political stunt on teh interwebs...

Recently, some gormless hack over at the Republican Party had presumably surveyed the wreckage of the GOP and remembered reading somewhere that their Obama-nemesis had used this new-fangled Internet thing to galvanise support. So he or she decided to ape this tactic by setting up a site that would give Joe The Plumber Public an opportunity to suggest ideas for "rebuilding" the party. However, that hack forgot something very important called moderation...

The wags over at political gossip site, Wonkette, quickly latched on to it and submitted their own suggestion - "Truck Nutz for all! Give all red-blooded Americans a pair of Truck Nuts for their F150's!" (For those of you who are unaware, these are Truck Nuts.) They then encouraged their rather substantial readership to vote for it. In the space of four hours, "Truck Nutz For All!" thus became the de-facto Number One Idea for the rebuilding of the Republican Party.

Shortly thereafter, it was pulled from the site, but not before giving us yet another moment of comedy gold in a campaign that has already been a veritable treasure trove.

In Germany, a mild-mannered haemotologist named Gero Hutter has used gene-therapy to effectively cure one of his patients of AIDS. The patient, who was undergoing leukemia treatment, was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a genetic mutation that made the donor immune to HIV infection. This immunity was then passed on to the recipient who has now been AIDS free for 600 days.

The mutation, shared by 1% of Europeans, works by stopping the production of CCR5, a molecule that binds to the surface of cells and acts as a welcome mat to the HIV virus. (On the down side, the absence of CCR5 might render an individual more likely to die from other diseases like the West Nile virus.)

The role of CCR5 inhibition in the treatment of AIDS is already widely acknowledged and drugs are currently being developed to exploit it, but this is the first time that a gene therapy with this strategy has been trialled effectively.

Naturally, it's early days; but the initial results are something to get seriously excited about.

This is a highly subjective guide to the seats to watch on election night that I put together for 2SER's election night party, Rumble In The Ballot Box. I hope you find it useful. Feel free to lambast any of my claims.

(FYI: TPP means "Two Party Preferred", "The Rodent" is John Howard's official nickname, and the percentage next to each seat name is the margin needed to win it.)

New South Wales

Bennelong LIB 4.1%
The Rodent’s Lair. A poll 3 weeks ago had Maxine McKew on 47%, Howard on 46% and the Greens on 4%. On the basis of this and the fact that leaders of the large local Asian community recently came out against the Liberals, Labor will win.

Wentworth LIB 2.4%
Mal Turnbull’s seat. A blue ribbon Eastern Suburbs seat turned marginal by a redistribution that tacked on Kings Cross, Potts Point & Darlinghurst. A recent poll gave the Greens a sizable vote (17%) that could decide this race and see Labor’s hapless George Newhouse scraping in.

North Sydney LIB 10.0%
The “Dare To Dream” seat. At the start of the campaign, no one would’ve given weatherman Mike Bailey even a snowflake’s chance in hell of unseating North Sydney MP, Joe Hockey. Tireless campaigning by Mike and a big anti-WorkChoices protest vote have, however, turned the unthinkable into the conceivable. A recent McNair poll had Hockey with 44% of the vote, Mike Bailey with 41%, and the Greens with a potentially decisive 10%.

Eden-Monaro LIB 3.3%
South Coast seat stretching from Queenbeyan to the Victorian border. Won by every government since 1972. In 2004, incumbent Gary Nairn benefited from a protest vote over Latham’s forestry policy. This time round, polls have Labor’s Mike Kelly winning it 53% to 47% TPP.

Parramatta LIB 0.8%
Only listed as Liberal marginal because of a redistribution. Labor’s Julie Owens is the sitting member and should retain it easily.

Lindsay LIB 2.9%
A recent poll of mortgage holders in Sydney and Melbourne had them voting 57% to 43% in favour of Labor. As this Penrith-based seat is regarded as classic mortgage belt, Labor should win it.

Dobell LIB 4.8%
Although based around The Entrance on the Central Coast, this seat is regarded as sharing behavioural traits with the Sydney mortgage belt seats. As a result, it should fall to Labor.

Robertson LIB 6.9%
The other Central Coast seat. A tougher ask for Labor than Dobell but it was included in a recent Galaxy Poll of NSW marginals that predicted a 7.3% swing to Labor. The figures are based on a small actual sample in Robertson (200) but it does suggest that Labor is in with a chance.

Paterson LIB 6.8%
A northern Hunter seat stretching from Port Stephens to Forster-Tuncurry, and inland to Dungog. One of the targets of the government’s $1 billion promise to upgrade the Pacific Highway. Also the source of conflicting polls. A Daily Telegraph survey of marginals had it contributing to an 8% swing to Labor, while a pre-interest rate rise Newcastle Herald poll had the Liberals with a commanding lead of 46% to Labor’s 32%.

Page NAT 5.5%
A North Coast seat centered around Lismore, Grafton, Casino and Ballina (where Rudd went to cheer on Efficient in the Cup.) Formerly in the safe hands of Nationals heavyweight, Ian Causley, who is now retiring. An influx of left-leaning sea-changers, coupled with the strong Labor vote in Lismore, could see Labor pick up this seat.

Cowper NAT 6.6%
The seat directly south of Page, that takes in Kempsey, Nambucca Heads and Coffs Harbour. Demographically, it’s shifted from a rural seat to one based on the tourist and retirement industries; a development that could assist Labor. If the predicted state-wide swing in the marginals (7.3%) is on, this too may fall.

Hughes LIB 8.5%
A Sutherland Shire based seat held by Danna Vale. The Galaxy poll of marginals rates it as one of the NSW seats “at risk” but it’s a solidly Liberal electorate with a high median income. It will only fall in the event of a Rudd landslide.

Queensland

Bonner LIB 0.5% & Moreton LIB 2.8%
With swings of 0.5% and 2.8% respectively, these two suburban Brisbane seats are Labor’s easiest pickings in Queensland. It helps that they also border on the electorates of Griffith and Lilley which are held by local-boys-done-good, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan. (Moreton has been nicknamed “Five Past Six” as 6:05pm is the time when it’s predicted that it will be called for Labor.)

Longman LIB 6.7%
A southern Sunshine Coast seat currently held by Mal Brough. It’s been included in two polls of Queensland marginals that suggest Labor will get a swing of around 5%. So, barring the sort of massive state-wide swing predicted early in the campaign, Brough should hold on in Longman and, as a result, will probably fancy his chances in the post-Howard battle for the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Blair LIB 5.7%
This seat, which takes in Ipswich and its western hinterland, is the target of one of the Government’s most extravagant pieces of pork-barrelling in this election – the $2.3 billion Goodna Bypass, designed to ease the congestion faced by Ipswich residents commuting to Brisbane. It’s got a mixed reception and may not be enough to save the electorate which was part of a Newspoll of marginals that delivered a resounding 9% swing to Labor.

Bowman LIB 8.9%
A bayside seat east of Brisbane. Despite the Lib’s sizable margin here, their candidate, Andrew Laming, has the whiff of corruption about him; having been previously investigated for printing rorts. The bookies (often as good a guide as the polls) have this seat as neck and neck between Labor and the Liberals.

Petrie LIB 7.4%
Petrie in the northern Brisbane suburbs is a seat that is known for its ability to swing wildly. This time around, though, local resentment over State Labor’s council amalgamation plans means it will probably only fall if there are large swings throughout the state to the ALP.

Herbert LIB 6.2%
This Townsville-based seat is Labor’s best chance for victory outside South-East Queensland. Home to a large Army barracks, it’s a seat where defence force enmity towards the government over the Iraq War and Brendan Nelson’s attempt to foist an unwanted fleet of Boeing jets on them could play a large part in the outcome. It was one of the marginals that polled a combined 9% swing to Labor, and a recent Townsville Bulletin poll had the ALP leading 53% to 47% TPP.

Flynn NAT 7.7%
A new seat based in Gladstone and stretching out to the coal mining districts of Central Queensland and beyond to Longreach. One of the keys here is the vote in Gladstone which swung heavily against the ALP in 2004. Labor’s chosen a popular local candidate from the town, Chris “CT” Trevor, and if he can pick up enough votes there to counteract the strong National vote in the west of the electorate, he is an outside chance to scrape in.

Victoria

Deakin LIB 5.0%
A classic mortgage belt seat in the Melbourne Eastern suburbs. In 2004, it delivered electoral pain to Labor over the Party’s support of a toll on the Scoresby freeway – a major arterial route between the East and the city centre. This time round, Labor will benefit from the interest rate backlash and heavy antipathy to WorkChoices. Their only problem is a candidate whose preselection smacked of shady back-room deals. Despite this, a Herald Sun poll at the beginning of November had Labor winning Deakin 55% to 45% TPP.

La Trobe LIB 5.8%
Jason Woods, the Liberal MP for this outer eastern Melbourne electorate, is so worried about his prospects that he recently published a campaign flyer that repudiated Party policy on nuclear power and made no mention of him being a Liberal. He may take comfort from the recent Galaxy poll of Victorian marginals that gave Labor a mere 4.6% swing, but it will still be a close contest.

Corangamite LIB 5.3%
A seat that takes in the outer suburbs of Geelong, the surfing meccas of Bells Beach and Torquay, and the hinterland north of the eastern Great Ocean Road. The demographics of this electorate are shifting from predominantly rural to increasingly suburban and sea changer based. This should favour Labor. Their only problem could be that they’ve parachuted in a candidate from Ballarat at a time when local pride is at an all-time high thanks to Geelong’s victory in the AFL premiership.

McMillan LIB 5.0%
Despite a lower margin than La Trobe or Corangmite, this seat which covers chunks of the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne and rural Gippsland, is seen as a less hopeful prospect for Labor. Like many rural and semi-rural electorates in Victoria, there is considerable simmering hostility to Brumby’s plan to pipe water from the country to Melbourne. There will thus need to be a big swing in suburban McMillan for Labor to win this seat.

Tasmania

Braddon LIB 1.1% & Bass LIB 2.6%
Braddon, which covers the north western corner of Tasmania, and Bass, which covers the north eastern corner, are the two seats in that state that went to the Liberals in 2004 as a result of the protest vote over Latham’s forestry policy. This time round, that is not a factor, and polls have consistently predicted both of these seats returning to Labor. The unloved Tamar Valley Pulp Mill is a big issue in these electorates but don’t expect it to be decisive, as voter anger is split between Labor (the State Labor government initially approved the Mill) and Liberal (who rubber stamped it at the Federal level).

South Australia

Kingston LIB 0.1%, Wakefield LIB 0.7% & Makin LIB 0.9%
With margins this narrow and predictions of solid swings from both state-wide and marginal polling, Labor is almost certain of picking up these three seats in the Adelaide suburbs.

Boothby LIB 5.4%
The big issue in this southern suburban Adelaide seat has been Labor’s “star” candidate Nicole Cornes. The wife of a local football legend, she has proven to be a terrible media performer who freezes under the spotlight. If Labor wins here it will be thanks to sympathetic state-wide swings and not the perceived quality of the candidate.

Sturt LIB 6.8%
A seat in Adelaide’s Eastern suburbs with a high-profile member, Chris Pine. Unlike Boothby, Labor’s “star” recruit here is a real potential star, a former Young South Australian of The Year named Mia Handshin. If a big swing is on in SA, Pine will lose this seat and Handshin will be a welcome addition to the new parliament.

Northern Territory

Solomon CLP 2.8%
The sitting member of this Darwin seat is colourful Top End lush, David Tollner. In 2001, he survived potential disendorsement for drink driving and cannabis charges and, in 2004, increased his margin from 88 votes to 2.8% of the vote. This time round he faces an increasingly uneasy suburban demographic, a sizable military vote that is no longer conservative-friendly, and a Labor candidate who’s a former footy coach and famously stood up for a woman’s “honour” against a dack-dropping AFL star and got decked for his efforts. All indications are that Tollner’s luck will finally run out and the seat will pass to Labor.

Western Australia

Cowan ALP 0.8%
If the Liberals have any chance of winning a seat, it is this electorate in Perth’s northern suburbs. Thanks to the mining boom, which has seen benefits for WA workers on AWAs, the swing against the Liberals may be smaller in Western Australia than elsewhere, and in this seat, the Liberals have a candidate who has been campaigning hard. An early West Australian poll on a small sample had this as a Liberal gain so this will be an interesting contest.

Hasluck LIB 0.1%
Based on a Westpoll poll in October that had them at a 2 Party Preferred vote of 54%, the Liberals fancy their chances of retaining this seat. The main point against their sitting member is his failure to stop the erection of an unpopular brickworks near the Perth airport. It should be close but is a likely Liberal retain.

Stirling LIB 2.0%
In the absence of a healthy Labor swing in WA, this will probably be the ALP’s only gain in Western Australia. Labor has put up an ex SAS Commander, Peter Tinley, in this seat who has been promoted heavily and looks set to overrun the Libs’ inconspicuous incumbent, Michael Keenan.

Forrest LIB 10.5%
Although Labor has no chance in this rural electorate in the southwestern corner of WA, it could deliver the surprise of the night with the Liberals losing it to an independent, Noel Brunning. Like the late Peter Andren, Brunning is the high-profile newsreader on a local TV station, GWN. If he wins Forrest, it means there will be three independents in the new parliament just as there were in the last one.

A rookie bomb disposal technician, fresh out of training, is sent on his first big job - defusing a 500 pound bomb in the middle of a small town. One false move and he risks not only turning himself into "pink mist" but destroying a nearby school and the town's power supply... At first blush, this might sound like the storyline from a hit new US TV action series; one in which the bomb was planted by freedom-hating Islamist terrorists... Only it's not. It's part of what unfolds in Bomb Harvest, a documentary by Australian filmmakers, Kim Mordaut and Sylvia Wilczynski, and the villain in this story is a "secret war" conducted the the US in the late 60's and early 70's.

Bomb Harvest is set in Laos and follows the work of the Mines Advisory Group who train locals in the task of defusing ordnance left over from the covert bombing of that country during the Vietnam War... By any estimation, it is a truly Herculean task.

Although it was never officially part of the main conflict, the bombing of Laos - aimed at cutting off Vietcong supply lines snaking through that country - continued in secret for nearly a decade. In the process, it rained down more explosives on Laos than the total dropped by all the Allies in World War II, and turned it into the most bombed country in the world. Most of these bombs exploded, but at least 30% didn't. This means that there are still 15 million pieces of unexploded ordnance scattered in the jungle or buried in fields throughout Laos.

This lethal lingering presence in Laotian life has bred a strange economy that exacerbates the dangers. Tilling soil to plant crops will often unearth the most insidious of these explosives, known as bombies. These are the individual constituents of cluster bombs, custard apple shaped spheres of ball bearings packed around explosives, which are released in their dozens from a single missile and designed to maim but not kill. (The thinking behind them is that a lame combatant or civilian will be more of a drain on an enemy's resources than a dead one.)

With attempts at cultivation turning productive members of communities into invalids, more desperate measures to find an income are resorted to and the most profitable of these is the highly dangerous collection of bombs to sell as scrap metal.

It's a grim situation and its grimness finds expression in the doco with disturbing scenes of children collecting ordnance in the jungle and feeling a palpable sense of regret when a bomb that could've obliterated part of their village but also could've been a gold mine, is successfully defused and carted away.

Despite this, the film is not uncompromisingly grim and dour. Indeed, at times, it is surprisingly funny; thanks to a very droll Australian bomb disposal technician who uses humour to defuse a tense "day at the office", and an ex-monk interpreter who's making up for lost time by drinking like a fish and unsuccessfully cracking on to every woman he meets.

Add to this a series of cleverly assembled montages of Vietnam-era stock footage that provide pungent glimpses into the history, and you have one the best Australian political documentary in quite while. Heavy on character, story and context; but light on didacticism.

After doing the festival circuit, the filmmakers have opted for self-release deals with a number of smaller cinemas like Cinema Nova in Melbourne, and the Roseville Cinema and Randwick Ritz in Sydney. If you get the chance, get along to one of the screenings (check the film's website for more details.)

And if, like me, you are horrified by the insidious evil of cluster bombs (which are still in use today) you might want to put your weight behind this campaign.

With the hearings in Washington casting a harsh light on the activities of Blackwater, it's worth remembering that they are not the only private security company in Iraq whose actions have resulted in civilian fatalities. Earlier this week, employees of the Australian-owned firm Unity Resources Group opened fired on a taxi that approached too close to a convoy they were guarding and killed two women. A spokesman for the company claimed that all appropriate warnings were given and that the extreme response was justified by fears of a potential suicide bombing.

Accounts by eyewitnesses, however, paint a somewhat different picture. Although the car did indeed approach the convoy at speed and failed to stop after the immediate firing of flares (possibly because the driver panicked), it was eventually brought to a halt by a shot to its radiator. Only then, when the vehicle was stationary, did two URG guards leave their SUV to open fire on it, killing the driver and and one of the passengers. (A woman and child in the backseat survived.) Once they were dead, the guards then returned to their vehicle and, according to an Iraqi policeman, "sped off like gangsters".

The incident has, naturally, provoked outrage in Iraq and is not the first such killing that URG has been involved in. Last year, they were investigated over the fatal shooting of a 72-year old agriculture professor who was in a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint.

In their defence, the guards did take appropriate steps to warn off the approaching vehicle, but serious questions still need to be asked about their actions after the taxi came to a halt. The Iraqi Interior Ministry is planning to appoint a committee to investigate the incident, but seeing as an Australian company was involved, I think it only right and proper that an Australian Royal Commission be set up to conduct their own inquiries. We owe it to the families of the victims, the incensed Iraqi populace, and any of our nationals on the ground who may be doing positive work and face having their image tarnished and lives threatened as a result of this incident.

If you agree with me, then I urge you to send an email to our Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock demanding the immediate establishment of a Royal Commission into this tragedy. He can be contacted via this web page.

Japanese TV continues to push the boundaries of popular entertainment and grace us with unparalleled moments of meme-spawning video weirdness. Although it might lack the drama and tension of Human Tetris or the sheer terror of Lizard vs Morning Musume, there is something surreally compelling about watching a self-conscious metrosexual in briefs offer up his armpits and knees to the ardent attentions of a canine tongue. The judges of this "talent show" obviously don't know what to make of it, so they resort to scoring his butt. (via TV In Japan)

Here are two blogs that have me enthralled at the moment but which may not be suitable for the squeamish. Who Killed Bambi? has very little text but plenty of arresting images of art with violent, gory or morbid themes. Morbid Anatomy is the bloggy love child of Joanna Ebenstein, a NYC graphic designer with a passion for medical art and objets d'art. I will be eternally grateful to her for alerting to the existence of this wonderful shop which I will be making a beeline for if I ever get back to New York.

So says Richard B. Freeman... And why should we listen to him? Because he is a professor of economics at Harvard who specialises in labour studies. If you can stomach his cringeworthy references to "kangaroo stew" and "platypus pie" then I thoroughly recommend reading his assessment of WorkChoices. (via Australia's best political blog, Blogocracy)

I've recently been reading The World Without Us, Alan Weisman's compelling meditation on the what might happen to the Earth if we all suddenly disappeared, so these lists of abandoned wonders of the modern world immediately appealed to me. (They even include a place mentioned in that book - the deserted Cypriot resort town of Varosha.) Other obvious highlights are Pripyat in the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, and the former Japanese coal mining island of Gunkanjima (The photo at the top of this post is from OrigamiKid's flickr set of photos of that island.) (via Web Urbanist)

Another video of photos and commentary; this time of the flocks of starling who crowd the skies over Rome each winter. As the above image indicates, this isn't just a modest gathering of bodies on the wing but a massed multitude of titanic proportions who return from the countryside each night to roost. The images were snapped by Richard Barnes and the words were provided by Jonathon Rosen. (via the Lens Culture blog) (BTW 'murmuration' is apparently the collective noun for starlings.)

At a Buddhist interfaith event in New York, photographer Stephanie Keith met a Haitian Vodou priest who invited her to come and photograph one of their ceremonies in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. She became something of a regular at these all-night rituals, and now shares her experiences with the world via this video featuring her images and commentary. (via Metafilter)

At this festival, photographers not only exhibit their works, they also get to participate in outreach programs that put cameras and basic photographic skills in the hands of local street kids, the disabled, and women with HIV/AIDS. The results of these programs are then posted on Flickr so they can acquire a global audience (cf this street kid photoset)

This year, the festival is also using Flickr to promote a competition for non-professional photographers. The theme: Asia in the World (ie photos taken in Asia, or of Asian culture in the world) The deadline is October 31st.