Day: January 21, 2006

A majority of Australians would like to sever constitutional ties with Great Britain if Prince Charles becomes King.

Now there’s a real confidence booster!

The poll published in The Weekend Australian found 46 percent of Australians believed Australia should become a republic, while 34 percent wanted the British monarch to remain Australia’s head of state.

But if Charles, the first in line for the throne, replaced his mother Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 80 in April, support for a republic would rise to 52 percent and opposition would slide to 29 percent, the poll said.

A referendum to make Australia a republic with a president replacing the British monarch as head of state was defeated in 1999.

Charles’ popularity has suffered since he divorced Princess Diana, who blamed his current wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, for ruining their marriage. Diana died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

All together now – Looooooosssserrrr!

I knew there was a reason to like Australia.

This is very nearly getting out of hand.

Israel said today that they are getting ready to take military action against Iran to stop their nuclear program.

“Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing,” Shaul Mofaz said.

His comments at an academic conference stopped short of overtly threatening a military strike but were likely to add to growing tensions with Iran.

They have good reason to be worried, given the anti-Israeli rhetoric being thrown about by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s proving to be a serious lunatic.

Sure, everyone hopes and believes that this standoff will be solved by diplomacy, but one shouldn’t underestimate the intentions of Ahmadinejad. If he is indeed capable of building nuclear weapons and threatens to use them, the USA will on him like white on rice. And a war like that would make Iraq look like romper room.

Another coal mine tragedy claims two more miners.

Rescuers on Saturday found the bodies of two miners who disappeared after a conveyor belt caught fire deep inside a coal mine, bringing to 14 the number of West Virginia miners killed on the job in less than a month.

The bodies were found in an area of the mine where rescue teams had been battling the intense blaze for more than 40 hours. Rescuers could not enter that portion of the mine until the flames had been mostly extinguished and the tunnels cooled down.

“We have found the two miners we were looking for,” said Doug Conaway, director of the state Office of Miners’ Health Training and Safety. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a positive outcome.”

The miners became separated Thursday evening as their 12-member crew tried to escape a conveyor belt fire at Aracoma Coal’s Alma No. 1 mine in Melville, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston. The rest of the crew and nine other miners working in a different section of the mine escaped unharmed.

“We have two brave miners that have perished,” Gov. Joe Manchin told reporters.

Conaway said it appeared the two miners made a “valiant effort” to escape, but were blocked by high temperatures and thick smoke.

As far as I’m concerned, coal miners go beyond bravery. Not many of us go to work each day and live with the idea that we might not come home. Yet that’s what these guys do. Just like cops. Just like fire fighters. Each one of them should be honored, not just during a tragic moment like this, but every day.

Harry Belafonte, who recently called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world”, has now compared the Department of Homeland Security to the Nazi Gestapo.

“We’ve come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended,” Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

“You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel,” said Belafonte.

And if you can believe it, he got a roaring standing ovation. But then again, when you consider the fact that audience members included Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, you’d quickly understand that there was an overabundance of moonbats present.

Oh, and he also called Bush a liar, and claimed that he rose to power “somewhat dubiously…”

And still, no prominent Democrats have come out to condemn Belafonte, but then again, why should they? Deep down, they believe the same thing he does.