Howard won't enjoy his morning walk

This story is unfolding so quickly the article I linked to completely changed between my starting and finishing the post. First it was just security guards, now they are Australian Soldiers involved in the fatal attack on the Iraqi trade minister's bodyguards. Are we at war with the new Iraqi government? Or just trying to emulate the Americans?

(EVENING UPDATE: Iraq wants compo and an apology or trade may be jeopardised. Fair enough really.)

Meanwhile Howard's nasty grommet of a policy on refugees is starting to benefit from the belated discovery, by certain members of his back-bench, that they were born with a spine between their arse and their mouth and that it's not illegal to sit up straight from time to time.

And the Oz puts their Union-bashing-for-Rupert on hold to castigate the Government over its war on democracy, making the link between emasculating Senate committees and the Asylum findings:

The timing of Senator Minchin's proposal also raises questions. It follows the decision of a Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, chaired by government senator Marise Payne, that Mr Howard's tough new laws for the treatment of asylum-seekers should be scrapped. Rather than supporting Senator Minchin's aims to emasculate the Senate, the committee's findings demonstrate what is at stake, and that Australians stand to be the losers if accountability is cut.

Perhaps if you held them more accountable yourselves, Oz...